* Posts by David Webb

1003 publicly visible posts • joined 16 May 2007

Burned by Chrome - Fire put out

David Webb
Jobs Horns

Service?

I'm not sure a browser can be considered a "service", maybe it means Google services you access via Chrome?

Vodafone says termination rate clampdown would hit the poor

David Webb
Linux

Competition

This "idea" will kill competition totally and utterly. If the majority of your friends and family are on network X and you are on network Y, what will you do? Stick with network Y and be charged a fortune for your friends/family, or switch to network X so you can call/be called for free?

And of course, the more people that switch to network X, the more people on Y will be enticed to join, after all, the majority of their friends/family are on that network, if anything it will kill the 3 Network, Vodaphone will enlarge and the minor companies will go bust due to lack of customers.

Microsoft dishes dirt on IE8 'pr0n mode'

David Webb
Gates Halo

UAC Flash....

... would be very nice. Having flash decide to run on any site which wants it to run is quite horrific, especially if you play an MMO, a new vuln is on the lose that uses Flash (again). If IE would disable plugins by default and only allow them to be active on sites you trust, it would do a lot to improve security.

Aussie school trials use of gadgets in exams

David Webb

So So Idea

I sort of like this idea, it does teach the children how to find sources of information (wiki, that won't help their grades) in a "real world" environment, but on the flip side, isn't an exam supposed to be where children have to put down what they have learnt rather than learning in the exam?

I'm happy to be persuaded that its a fantastic idea, but I'm also unsure that it is. Or maybe I'm just jealous because we didn't have these sort of things in my IT exam when I was a lad.

Aussie has answer to save Earth from asteroid attack

David Webb
Paris Hilton

The answer....

"... Are you supposed to wrap an asteroid in friggin cling film?"

The answer is in the subject, a sattelite is put in orbit around the asteroid which then covers it with cling film. As the sattelite spins around in its orbit it releases a small amount of cling film with enough slack to not pull the spinny thing crashing into the surface of the asteroid. As it spins around its orbit, more of the cling film is wrapped around it. At least thats what I made of the bit in the article.

Paris, to do with cling film, wrapping her up etc....

A third of Vista PCs downgraded to XP

David Webb
Gates Halo

Vista

I actually like Vista. Sure at the start I was finding myself switching back to XP rather often, but now I only have XP if I need to use my camera as a webcam. Vista is actually pretty good when you get used to it, I don't think I could go back to XP, it just looks so aincient in comparison, a bit like going back to Win98 from XP.

Of course, the Vista haters will also hate Win 7, simply because the UI will be the same as Vista, and they are happy with their XP interface and pretty much refuse to give Vista a decent chance, may as well switch them to Linux (Suse 11.0 with KDE 4.1 is pretty good!) if they refuse to use Vista 2.

Obligatory "Apple suck" comment here.

Facebook sued for Beacon blunder

David Webb

The irony

Anyone else see the irony in setting up a Facebook page for the suit?

Game rating system needs legal backing, claims supporter

David Webb

Rating

I kind of agree, both systems have their merits, but PEGI's rating system isn't one where PEGI will play the game a little and then rate it, PEGI will get the game developer to tell them "so, what should we rate this? moderate sex, violence, swear words, blood, gore and spiders? so a 6 then?". A developer *can* lie to PEGI since it is not legally enforcable.

The BBFC has teeth, not only are the rating legally binding, but if a developer tries to get an 18 rated 15, the developer would be in deep water.

Suprise at spelling snafu sanctions

David Webb

I agree

Totaly agre wiv this blowk, eny kidz whu kant spel rite shud b alowd two du az dey wont two du. Y shud dey hav two spel rite enywho? Itz nut leik dey kned two b abel two spel in der reel wurld!

Good lord, its incredibly difficult to spell like that. Guy needs to be strung up, kids need to be able to spell properly, they need to know why we use their instead of there, the current crop of kids will be facing off in the international marketplace against Chinese children, think of the future!

Rockstar confirms GTA IV PC edition

David Webb

Oh dear

2 day difference between the US and UK release, havent game developers learnt anything? its a hotly anticipated title, do they honestly think people are going to sit and patiently twiddle their thumbs for two days, or hit the nearest torrent site?

MPs lambast BBFC over Batman

David Webb
Stop

12A

- Likewise, Home Affairs Select Committee chairman and 42-day detention beneficiary devotee Vaz said: "The BBFC should realise there are scenes of gratuitous violence in The Dark Knight to which I would certainly not take my 11-year-old daughter. It should be a 15 classification." -

Quite right too, if he had taken his daughter to see the film he would have broken the law, or at least the cinema would have, could you imagine the scene then? "my daughter is 11 but I am an adult with her! do you know who i am? my daughter wants to see this film let me in! this is a travesty of..." etc..

I always thought 12A meant "minimum age 12, but contains adult themes, parental discretion advised". Not strong enough for a 15, but too strong for a PG.

The use of a 12 certificate allows the word "fuck" every now and then, as well as nudity... I remember when I were young, just a lil bit of flesh is all we saw, maybe a knee, and then Mary Whitehouse would get on her high horse and lambast the BBC for standards!

Jack Nicholson said it best "show a tit in sexual content, its an 18, show a tit being cut off and its PG". 12A, assume the A means "adult themes" and judge if you believe your child is mature enough to watch a film which may contain adult themes.

Thales wins first UK ID card contract

David Webb
Pirate

Not compulsary?

Have i missed something or are ID cards now compulsary? I can't imagine them swapping it for paper passports, lots of countries wouldn't be able to handle a bespoke ID card, nor for driving licence, so as far as I remember we won't be "forced" to have one (just yet).

if they do become compulsary, I'll go to the local police station and hand myself in for arrest. I'll be a pirate!

EA preps video game PCs

David Webb

@AC RE: Brilliant idea!

"When you can get a good MMORPG or RTS running on a console let me know"

Final Fantasy XI, best MMORPG out there by a large margin, available on PS2/360 and PC.

McKinnon loses Lords appeal

David Webb

Torture

I was thinking about this recently when Parliment was told to ensure that the US were not illegally torturing prisoners, our government seems to think that they are. Now we are not allowed to extradite people, even terrorist scumbags who deserve to be removed from the country - and tortured, and killed, painfully, bloody terrorist scum -, if they are being sent to a country that will torture their prisoners.

Now, as the UK gov seems to believe the US are torturing prisoners, and there are doubts if this fella is going to get a military hearing, then couldn't he appeal on the grounds that there are no guarantees he will not be tortured?

US Air Force may allow killbots to be flown by non-pilots

David Webb

Buy British

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/16/bae_mantis_generation_skip/

There you go, you missed an opportunity to recommend the British version over the American version, except of course you slated the British version for doing what the Americans want their drones to do.....

Inquirer celebrates spammer murder-suicide

David Webb

Happy Ending?

There is no happy ending, just a tradgedy. Families in pain due to the murder of their loved ones. How any journalist could put it in a "good light" is beyond me. Though I read some of the comments in the 1st reg article, and some of the posts struck me as just as bad as the inq article, humanity sucks.

Exploit code for Kaminsky DNS bug goes wild

David Webb

Plusnet

Plusnet seems to not have this flaw. Go plusnet!

Ubisoft pirates game fix from pirates

David Webb

DRM

DRM in games will always *eventually* be cracked, no ifs or buts, at least until they invent the perfect system which can't be cracked. But the onus there is on the *eventually* part. Game developers naturally want to be paid, they are risking their own money, millions of pounds, on developing a game in the hope it will sell and sell well enough to bring in the cash.

They may make 20 games a year, 15 of these games may not make a profit, and may make a huge loss, the 5 games that do make a profit have to cover the 15 titles, which may be experimental titles, like Uplink or instance.

Now, people who download the software illegally are taking away the profits from the 5 profitable games, which is why we have a huge influx of FPS, more FPS and umm, FPS on top of that, ohh and a little more FPS just to make sure. Companies are less likely to splash out on titles which won't make them money, because the 5 games that would are making them less.

So they use DRM, with the intention of trying to keep the game uncracked long enough so that people who are border line download/buy are more likely to go along the buy route. The hardcore downloaders who haven't even paid for the OS they are running, and wouldn't buy a game if it was £1.99 will never buy the game anyhow.

We're already seeing the effect of bittorrent on the game scene, other than Spore, which is a truly original title, how many fully original games, genre setting games, unique games, have there been recently?

One future is that all PC games have a pure online component, with CD Key checks, and content you have to play online, with SP content being poor, substandard, so to play the proper game you have to play it online, thats going to be the most effective DRM.

Nokia E71 smartphone

David Webb
Jobs Horns

None

"Let's see how many people queue to get one the these Nokia doorstops shall we? haha too little too late"

None? People won't need to because Nokia don't treat their client base like sheep so will provide more than enough mobiles to cover demand, thereby not creating a false "look, everyone wants this phone so much we've run out of stock!"

The N71 is a "smart" phone for "smart" people, not a hideous locked down pile of designer junk aimed at the "ohh pretty" market. Nokia will continue to dominate with more than 1 mobile phone, whilst the iphone is still nothing more than a pathetic attempt at a phone with a pretty UI, and not much else.

Hackintosh maker gets legal greeting from Apple

David Webb
Jobs Horns

PC less reliable?

You can buy every single Mac component off the shelf, the exact same model from the exact same companies that make the Mac hardware, its not some super beefed up version with a million and one differences from standard PC hardware.

All Apple do is put it together in a shiny box and convince idiots that "hey, its better than a PC, even though it actually is a PC, but lets not dwell on that fact, lets bash Microsoft!"

David Webb
Jobs Horns

Apple won't lose

As much as Apple suck and prevent any competition in the Apple "market", they will not lose simply because of Microsoft. The EU will not look at Apple shutting any and all other vendors out of the Mac scene because they consider Apple a competitior to Microsoft so figure it shouldn't run by the same rules.

Now if MS were to lock down XP/Vista so it wouldn't run on Apple hardware, the EU would be on them like a ton of bricks.... however, Apples TOS say it only needs to be "Apple labeled" not "Apple hardware".

Europe loves HD TVs - but not HD broadcasts

David Webb

Sky HD + FTA

Well, I bit the bullet and got Sky HD for £99 + installation of £30 (i.e. signed up as a new customer because old customers get the shaft constantly with Sky), but HD is £10 extra a month, so I dropped the movie channels for a year, once the year is up and I can drop the £10 subscription fee, I'll add the movies back to the mix and just watch the only "decent" HD channels, BBC and C4, which are free.

Gotta admit though, watching The Invisibles on BBC HD was quite nice.

BBC must reveal EastEnders costs

David Webb

I'm with the BBC

Doesn't the actors, writers etc. have any right to privacy about how much they are paid? I wouldn't really want my wage to be in the public domain because some person with an axe to grind thought it was in the "public interest" to know. An overall figure of the wage budget sure, but "Grant Mitchell" or whoever "earns £150,000 per year, plus £50,000" etc. is just really tasteless.

MP's yes, private citizens who are just doing a job that is not in the public interest? No.

Hawkeye technology turns tennis into a cartoon

David Webb

Previous winners

Whilst there are exceptional players (Federer, Sampras, Borg) who dominate, there are also players who surprise us. This year it was actually a Scot getting to his first finals, 2001 Ivanisevic entered as a wildcard, 02, Hewitt. Wimbledon is about the crowd, the atmosphere, the occasion, and this year, probably the best final ever recorded on TV.

Who knows if Nadal will go on to dominate it, who knows if Federer will be back next year, who knows if both will be knocked out to a wildcard, that is the beauty of Wimbledon, where even the best (Sampras) can be knocked out in the 4th round by someone no one remembers today.

Eurofighter at last able to drop bombs, but only 'austerely'

David Webb

Typhoon is a fantastic fighter!

The US had one of their fighter party type things last year or so, with their new fangled super stealth fighter that is apparently "the best in the universe, ever". The Typhoon obtained lock BVR on whatever that super US fighter is. After that the US decided to stop the trials because they didn't want the embarrasment of the Typhoon winning.

Yes we can buy American, but do we really want our military to have to rely on the Americans to give them the information they need? Computer problem with the on board software? Can we fix it? Nope!

We need solutions which do not require intervention from other nations, we have the capability to build world class aircraft, and in the Typhoon we have arguably the best jet fighter in the world.

What we don't really need is another lecture from a pro-american-buy-anything-with-star-spangled-banner "journalist" about why the US has cheaper/better/etc items

Tiwi spies on your children, so you don't have to

David Webb

Yes....

I can see it now, lil Johnny pulls up to the traffic lights, revs the engine.... light turns green and he's off, hurtling down the road at a massive 30mph! The software phones home and worried mother phones her son.

However, her son is driving a car, and now getting a major ear bashing from his mother he is unable to concentrate properly on the road and doesn't see the tank coming the other way.

The last thing the mother hears before poor Johnny is crushed under the tracks of a tank is "but I'm not spee...."

Speed doesn't kill, mothers kill - and tanks.

Who will be the next Doctor?

David Webb
Alien

Time Synch

Well, the Doctor will regenerate into someone else, but they are slightly out of synch with time, so the "new" doctor will set about fixing everything by some seriously incredible plot involving bees.

When the doctor fixes everything, the time shift will revert everything back to how it was before Davros started messing with time, so the Doctor will degenerate back into Tennant.

However, what is most likely to happen is his assistant is actually still dreaming it, she hasnt got rid of that bug in her back, she wakes up in a shower and finds out the past series never actually happened! What? It happend with Dallas!

Spain plans 'human rights' for great apes

David Webb

Donkeys

I'm more inclined to wonder how long before donkeys have the right to not be thrown off the top of a tower, at least I'm pretty sure thats what happens in Spain, or somewhere.

CERN declares Large Hadron Collider perfectly safe

David Webb
Alien

The Universe...

We have always wondered where the matter that created the Big Bang came from (unless you are American, in which case there was no big bang) but science has never really found an answer, until now!

This monster of a machine will create a black hole that will grow really big (scientific term there) and start to suck in the Earth followed by the entire Universe. As black holes can (apparently, according to the telly at least) exist in two different times, its quite possible that we open one end of a black hole here, and another black hole way back in the past.

Now all the matter that gets sucked in on this time of the universe, finds its way back to the other side of the black hole which then fills up, like petrol in a tank, only cheaper, then once it is full enough, it will explode in a Big Bang!!

I call it first, we're about to create the Universe!

Competition watchdogs urged to act on 'commercial iPlayer'

David Webb

Sky...

Does that mean Sky will stop advertising all their channels/products every 5 seconds during every commercial break now? Or is it only PBS channels that shouldn't be allowed to advertise their streaming media?

Yahoo! sets date for Icahn showdown

David Webb

Maybe

Maybe that is all MS is after, but if Yahoo! went for the OS pill, basically opening up their entire service to the world (even Google which uses FOSS doesn't show their source code) all their competitors who are trying to build a "Yahoo! beater" will actually be able to use the Yahoo! code to do it. With such a saturation the advertising power of Yahoo will slip down, so OS is a lose/lose situation.

David Webb

Open source it?

I think not, as soon as Yahoo! said "sod it, lets open source it!" Microsoft would not pay a penny per share. Microsoft would have full access to all of Yahoo's source code, it would be open source after all, they could read it and go "ohh, so thats how they do that!" and built a system based on Yahoo technology without touching the open source code.

The "poison pot" would actually poison Yahoo and give all of Yahoo's competitors an insane edge, effectivly killing Yahoo. A case of cutting of their nose to spite their face.

UK to outlaw cartoons of child sexual abuse

David Webb

Art...

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Shall I hear more? Or shall I leave because a drawing of Romeo and Juliet is now illegal, and I'll have to wait until she turns 18 before anyone can draw a picture of us in loves sweet embrace?

I'm very anti-child abuse, but you have to draw a line between protecting the innocent, and destroying freedom of speech. Any laws which help protect children from abuse = good, any laws which will have no effect on child abuse but is there because some stuffy old politician wants a +1 to their vote count is an abuse of their powers. Lets all not vote for whichever idiot thought these laws are good ones.

City anti-Scientology protestor avoids court summons

David Webb
Gates Halo

Repeated again

I said it in the first article about this, and I'll repeat it in this one. Email your MP's and let them know how outraged you are by this issue. If enough people email their MP's the London Police will think twice before disrupting a peaceful and legal protest against the Cult of Scientology.

I've already wrote to my MP (Andrew George, Lib Dem, St Ives), I'm awating the little yellow envelope from the Houses of Commons with some "yes, this is terrible, i shall be sure to bring it up with the Home Secretary!", if enough MP's start complaining to their MP's, which in turn start complaining to the Home Office, the HO will have no other choice but to tell the Police "look, don't distrupt Cult demonstrations, we're getting emails and one threatened to send in the BOFH!"

Bill Gates, because the Cult of Microsoft is legal, and not a cult.

Apple sued over Mighty Mouse

David Webb
Jobs Horns

i-mouse

Just incase Apple lose, I'm about to start production of the i-mouse, its basically a logitech G7 the the G7 scribbled out and i-mouse wrote in its place, then when Apple try to change their mouse name to i-mouse, I can sue them too!

Hello Kitty gets claws into UK electronics

David Webb
Paris Hilton

So cute

I'm going to have to get a HK vibrator for the girl of my dreams! What more could a woman desire than a HK vibrator? Not only is it really cute, its functional too! I'm 100% sure every woman deserves a ramant Hello Kitty!

Paris, because, well if you need it explained to you....

Teen battles City of London cops over anti-Scientology placard

David Webb
Alert

Complain in force!

What we really need to do is complain to the people that matters, our local MP's. I'm sure El Reg has readers from every constituency in the UK and if they were to email their MP with their outrage at the Police prohibiting freedom of speech for a recognised and aknowledged cult, then maybe the MP's will do something about it? Maybe earn their wage for a change.

Contact your MP, you can find the contact details of your local MP here:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4018047

I'm sure as hell going to email mine venting my disgust at the treatment of protesters to their a) freedom of speech and b) their freedom to protest.

Legal experts wary of MySpace hacking charges

David Webb

No laws?

If there are no laws that this hideous cow cannot be charged under, then make new laws under which future people who torment a troubled teenager so much they commit suicide can be charged with.

Incitment to suicide? Assisting suicide? Heck even euthinasia. Of course making a new law would mean the old hag couldn't get charged with it as it wasnt a crime at the time.

As someone posted, they could possibly charge her with grooming a teenager in a sexual manner (offering to show their "snake"). Maybe they could even charge her under some anti-spam laws and fine her billions of dollars - or they can leave her in a room, with the closest family members of the poor girl who died and let justice be served the Christian way.

Apple okay with Safari 'carpet bombing' vuln for now

David Webb
Black Helicopters

Obvious!

Having thought long and hard about this for at least 5 seconds (which 5 seconds thinking about an Apple product is 4.9999 seconds too long) I've figured out the reason behind it all!

Apple downloads their rubbish browser onto Windows computers, disguising it as a "crucial must download else you'll die" update. Lots of Windows users who only use the internet to download porn and email aunty Maude in Zimbabwe unwittingly download the browser because they know "update = must do" because its been drilled into them "KEEP ALL YOUR SOFTWARE UPDATED TO AVOID TROUBLE!!!!!".

Safari takes over and unwitting user know has a major security issue with their computer, it gets taken over by trojans, malware, spyware etc. Who do they blame? Safari? No, Microsoft, they blame MS for the problem caused by Apple. Fed up with the "insecure Microsoft OS" they go to PC World and say "I'm fed up now, what else can I use other than a PC to download porn?" Helpful PC World drone says "A Mac?".

Mac sales go up because Apple have poisoned Windows by putting their own timebomb on it. Its a conspiracy!

David Webb
Gates Halo

Re: Re: Only a problem on Windows Safari

When IE downloads a file from the internet it becomes marked as "potentially unsafe", even files from trusted sources (like microsoft.com) will be marked as such, any attempt to open said file will result in a "make sure you trust the source, are you sure you want to run this file?".

If you really trust it you can unlock the file in Properties.

Safari is terrible. We <3 Microsoft /coff

Asimo conducts symphony orchestra

David Webb

All depends

It sort of does depend on how Asimo conducted the music. if it read from the music sheet and processed the notations into movements, as well as listened and processed the sounds coming from the orchestra, then I think its a pretty big step. But as said, if its just a programmed sequence of movements then its not exactly rocket science.

Whitehats tackle The Great Botnet Dilemma

David Webb

Plusnet

I saw a couple of IP's there with F9 IP's so posted on the Plusnet forums, they have raised a ticket and are going to help those infected by the botnet. So thumbs up for Plusnet.

So if you see any IP there in the same range as you, pop a ticket with your ISP and see if they will do anything about it to help those who are infected.

Prank callers crash Dublin Zoo phone system

David Webb

Memories

A while ago I was sent a text message saying "about a job, phone this number and ask for Tony". Obviously I didn't want a new job so said no, but they said phone it anyway which I did. Turned out the "Tony" that I called lived at number 10 Downing Street.

Google tips hat to St George - finally

David Webb
Happy

As a Welshman

As a Welshman, if anyone asks I'm British (its a lot easier, especially with Americans who have no idea where Wales is), however if I say "I'm British" people assume I'm English.

After I have beat them around the head with a daffodil and explained that English != UK, and of course used the phrase "Bloody English!" several times, its all settled.

This one time I was chatting to an American and they asked "where are you from?" I said "UK", they said "oh, I'm from MA!" or something, then asked "which state is UK?"

Anyhow, that dragon looks cute, and whilst you English may have a bloody great dragon killer, us Welsh have a dragon... wait... umm... yeah...

Happy St Georges day ya bloody English ;)

US gov may forbid BAE Eurofighter sale to Saudis

David Webb
Gates Halo

Eurofighter

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt the Eurofighter basically an aircraft with parts built in different countries? For instance the engines may be built in the UK but the wings are from Germany and the tail from Spain? Obviously each country will have their Typhoon built to their own specifications, the Germans may want a much different targetting system using their own tech rather than American tech (i.e. tech which fires on Blue on Blue).

With this in mind, wouldn't it be easy for the UK to just remove the offending parts and insert parts from other members of the Eurofighter consortium? Or just replace it with bits made in the UK removing the US totally from the Eurofighter.

There is always going to be an option for BAE to just say "sorry fellas, if we can't sell your parts, we'll get the parts from somewhere else".

El Reg celebrates 10th birthday

David Webb
Happy

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you etc.!

BBC vs ISPs: Bandwidth row escalates as Tiscali wades in

David Webb

Fixed Rate

Remember the halycon days of 56k modems on an 0845 number? Back then "unmetered" internet was but a dream, but the charging was fair. You paid by the minute, if you were on for 10 minutes you would be charged the connection fee (5p) and 1p a minute, so it cost 15p for 10 minutes internet access.

Then game 0808 numbers and "unmetered" internet, 56k modems could be connected without having to pay BT £300 a quarter, of course there were tiers, 5 hours a week, 50 hours a week and you paid for what you used.

Then along comes ADSL and again the market changed, now you had "true" unmetered internet access, able to be online 24/7 without your ISP cutting you off every 2 hours and 30 minutes of engaged tones.

The problem with that was there were no tiers, someone who only used the internet for an hour a week sending emails, was paying as much as someone who used their DSL 24/7 downloading every hentai they could find.

Therein lies the problem, ISP's have to reintroduce tiers. If you want to download tentacle squid machine fifteen from some Japanese p2p application, you should be willing to pay your fair share, you shouldn't expect to be subsidised by Granny Smith who sends photos of her cats and rude turnips to Uncle Peter in Australia.

The ISP model does have to change, the entire range of products have to change, the people who use their internet connections have to start paying for what they use. We have to go back to the 0845 model, only instead of being charged per minute, we are charged per GB.

Yes there would be lots of "gimme my MAC! X ISP is offering unlimited internet access!" at the start, but then X ISP would go bankrupt unless they switched to a per GB pricing model, if you want to download 100GB/Month, you better be prepared to pay £200 for it instead of £8.99.

Would this change the market? Yes it would, companies which invest heavily in LLU and can support an "unlimited" model would start to offer heavy competition to BT's model, BT would be forced to change their network to remain competetive with LLU suppliers, ISP's would be able to lower their costs per GB and pass the savings onto their customers and we would end up with a healthy broadband infrastructure which is able to cope, not only with current SD content, but future HD content where bandwith needs will double? Triple? Quadruple?

If ISP's are unable to cope *now* with the issues that the iPlayer had introduced, what hope do they have on future projects? None. they need to stop blaming the BBC for what is pretty much the fault of their own creation, they need to start fixing it and introducting fair pricing, and until they actually put their house in order, the industry as a whole will suffer quite badly.

Only Ubuntu left standing, as Flash vuln fells Vista in Pwn2Own hacking contest

David Webb
Jobs Horns

@ Pierre

I'll happily admit there are some failings within the Windows environment, one which you pointed out, that 3rd party applications can and do cause annoying issues. Linux does lots of things, especially application managment, much better than Windows does, and is inherently more secure.

However, a failing in both Linux and Windows is the same issue you highlighted, installing software that is incompatible that will crash the system. Some Linux app's require sudo to install properly which elevates their rights, sure on Linux you may be able to log in and fix the issues, or even telnet in and fix the issues, but both systems can be prone to such 3rd party foibles.

Mac's just suck, can we at least agree on that? :P

David Webb
Gates Halo

@ Pierre

Yep, full screen DOS window is just the same as a normal windows DOS window, everything is running in the background. You can however in that window bring up a list of running tasks with 'tasklist' which lists all running tasks and their pid, then 'taskkill /PID [pid number] /F' that will force the task to die, the same as the Linux pidoff and kill commands.

So if the badly running app was called "badapp" with a pid of 123, it would be taskkill /PID 123 /F which *should* kill and force the death of the badly running application, you can also use /T to kill and child processes started by the poorly running application. It does what task manager does, only in DOS.

@ the M$ comment by Kwak, quite true, MS are a very profitable company, and I'm sure you give away, as a percentage, as much money to charity as Bill Gates does every year, yes? No?

David Webb

@ Pierre

If its a driver issue, hit the reset button, boot into safe mode which doesn't load any drivers except fail safe drivers, uninstall application, you are just making a huge issue out of a minor detail.

Heck you could boot up in safe mode then use system restore to restore the system to a point before the driver was installed.

Yes on Linux you can ctrl+alt+backspace to shut down X (unless something like KDM is running in which case you first need to open a terminal window then kill the kdm process), but Windows has a similar function, open a cmd prompt, gain focus then Alt+Enter for full screen terminal. You just went the difficult route for a simple solution.