Posts by gimbal

Perseid meteors - brace for endazzlement

Thanks for the heads-up, El Reg

It sounds like it'll be a fine weekend to go camping somewhere under clear skies - no joke...

Want to use WD diagnostics? Buy Windows

Sounds like quite a professional exchange

I'm an avid Linux user, and I feel I can associate with the concerns addressed in this article. By the sound of the reporting about the person's own exchanges with WD, however, I'd like to offer my kudos to WD customer support, in the foremost. It sounds like they must be quite a professional organization.

As far as the technical matters, I don't know if WD's Windows-based diag. software would offer anything in addition to the regular SMART diagnostic facilities. If not, the customer support representative's response is completely legitimate, and I can't see any reason for being concerned about it. Linux offers us those SMART-diagnostic and hardware-adjustment tools, indeed.

Mine's the one with the PT Barnum biography in the pocket - just because the real PT Barnum was a genuine businessman.

RIM answers Apple iPad with...The BlackPad*

Identity Protection, Nothing More

I remember reading a certain article in Blacklisted 411, a number of years ago - probably in the late 1990's, as memory servers. The article discussed the acquisition - by a major UK-based (I think) and US-marketed (I know) cel-phone carrier - the acquisition of a large number of internet domain names, many of which bore only some varying degrees of similarity to the name of the company itself. For detail's sake, I'm afraid that the exact name of that carrier presently escapes me.

I believe it's highly possible that RIM is performing a similar maneuver, with the domain-name acquisition denoted in this article. It doesn't mean they're going to call it BlackPad - as I highly doubt they would, honestly. It could just as well be that they're trying to prevent anyone else from calling it the BlackPad, at least in so far as could be represented at a prospective site under that internet domain name - a site that could actively, selectively, and exclusively tarnish the identity of their actual product. It could be sort of a damage-limitation maneuver, as far as product identity goes.

Cheers anyway. It's close enough to beer o'clock after all...

Withings Wi-Fi bathroom scales

Novel.

I, for one, welcome our novelty-peddling overlords... if they aren't here already...

Empires built on free code aren't cheap

Not Linux's Problem

So many questions...

- Would Facebook's costs really be any different if they were using closed-source platforms?

- To what extents have they had to customize anything in the Linux environment?

They'd still have to write new code, whether they were using closed-source or open-source platforms.

You've got peanut butter in my chocolate sir, and chocolate in my peanut butter. I could've sworn I caught a whiff of propaganda about open-source licensing, somewhere around here.

If I have so misunderstood the intentions and the effects of the author's statements about FaceBook's choice of open-source licensing, "My bad."

The Sun saves parasailing donkey's ass

Asses aweigh, my friends...

Assinine, indeed. Will the Sun pony-up again, if we launch a BP exec up there, instead?

Microsoft 'record' results beat Jedi mind trickery

Jedi - bah

I think there's a smudge of Sith face-paint on the sheet - I'm just sayin'.....

Raptor over Blighty: Watch the stealth fighter in infrared

I can fix!

Just lease out those birds as commuter craft for the Fortune 500 in the respective NATO nations, and there's some more income, right there - too easy....

Microsoft to banish 'responsible' from disclosure debate

Bottom Line: They want to protect their bottom line

"We all want to protect customers and users" - what a simple statement. I wonder if it's actually the full story?

Not to read *too much* into it, I read the suit's statements as being (perhaps) more like this: "We all want to protect the Microsoft bottom line - especially when it comes to disclosing holes in the cheesecloth that is the Microsoft Windows 'security framework'," only from a perspective developed without really taking an objective look at the said cheesecloth, and certainly looking mostly towards job-security.

Cheers, friends.

Mine's the one with the lockpick in the pocket.

Amazon's profit disappoints, thanks to Apple's iPad success

Oh no, the money grew but not as much as expected... ?

I guess I sure am a noob at this Stock Market game.

Their profits grew, but not as much as the guessmen had guessed... and, so, some people in the market might now feel disappointed about it?

If there was an epic way in which to scratch one's own head, in wonder, I suppose I'd be doing so, right now. it all looks to me like something even less complex than a good old game of chess.

Paris is my bookie and broker, aight?

UK Skylon spaceplane set for engine test in '3-4 years'

Thank the Monolith...

The US isn't the only country still pursuing active plans for development (of some kind or another, genuine development) and exploration in outer space? Yay!

Mine's the one with the Arthur C Clarke novel in the pocket.

Firefox joins Microsoft in uncool kids class

Google - target of the Microsoft FUD Division

Well, that's impressive. Little old Google has so caught the attention of Microsoft suits, they clearly feel threatened, to the point of feeling a need to spread FUD about Google - and the statics in this matter of net-user browser preferences would bear out that there *is* reason for Microsoft, at least, to notice the competition.

If only they could learn how to be good sports about it. My honest impression is that they're spoiled, but I suppose that would be almost beside the point.

Hurray for Google, I mean seriously.

Steve Jobs death-grips iPhone 4 reality

Always the marketer's approach

It would appear to be a rule of thumb for bendy-ethics marketing, such that Herr Jobs is apparently aware of: Never let facts stand in the way of branded "truth".

Cheers.

Top Solaris developer flees Oracle

Can we split the difference

...and just moon Sun MIcrosystems? ><

China renews Google's internet licence

Keep on rockin' in the free world

I'm not going to play The Infamous Nanny about Google's decisions. If @Silky is right, I think they've made a smart move, within the constraints of the limited space they have available, in that climate. I'm sure it won't be the last word about the Chinese government's whitewashing of their national culture and history.

New dinosaur dubbed 'Mojoceratops' - 'over a few beers'

@DZ-Jay : You pinned it, bro

I'm sure they'll soon elect to rename the Pleistocene Epoch to "The Days of Epic Chill" or something involving jin and juice.

As long as they don't start burning the books, though, then I hope we're alright, at least for the sakes of the remaining genuine research scientists of forthcoming generations, and those of the present.

On a more genuine angle: Public education standards are something that many people would probably not enjoy true criticism about, but I think that some constructive criticism about as much would be very appropriate, these days. The quality of public education, throughout any region, is going to affect the level of regional ... erm ... shall one say, regional remedial-ness?

I don't believe private education standards would all be so far out of step with those of the public schools, either. We're all on the same national ship, here, after all.

Fix those standards, and set up curricula - around the nation - upon which *all* teachers would be required to actually know what they're teaching, first, then to *teach* (and where the real teachers would be the most supported in as much) and then things may start to change for the better.

Failing that, I'm shipping off to higher ground - or maybe I'll just go for a career in entertainment, after all.

Paris, because doesn't *she* deserve a Nobel Prize for Hawtnesss??...

Business guru tries to silence bloggers over 'misleading' mailshot

Wot?

Oh, the lawyers have actually joined the marketing team - but my, that's grand.

I doubt that any matters of the criticisms could leave room for even a slander case, in court. Just because they're lawyers, doesn't mean they should get away with being "legal bullies", no?

Russian spies dumped in Vienna after swap

Maybe the old bear just needed some publicity

Since the dismantling of the infamous Iron Curtain, we who live and work both in the states and outside of NASA* have hardly ever heard from or about the Russian Federation - granted, excluding so-many punters' attempts at making some mail-order bride magic happen.

Perhaps the incident could serve, somehow, to lend some positive public attention about Russia. Is she so isolationist that she would not want the attention? I hope not. Russia is a nation with her own independent culture. It seems to me that we've all not been the best of friends, recently - the Russian Federation government and the States, at least - though I believe it would do us both well, to resolve that. Is the torch of diplomacy not still burning, in some quarters?

* Grand-daddy of the International Space Station and her also-Russia-supported / also-Russian-members international crew, is it not?

Dead Pink phone fallout hits Microsoft's top brass

So, they'll just spin it into a hip new reality TV show...

...and the market will applaud, none the wiser. All hail our renewed technological shmeaders!

Tee hee?

Robotic cargo spacecraft misses rendezvous with ISS

Hey that's alright, it can wait for us at the lagrange point with the moon*

...and some four years down the line or so, when NASA might get to have a moon-reaching program again.

Hey, but maybe they forgot to convert some Imperial units into Metric? Tee hee.

So, but why not just pull up a beer and wait for 'em throw the big grappling hook, after all?

Why we love to hate Microsoft

Oohh Oohh, Can I add....

Do:

- Give Microsoft Windows Vista customers a free upgrade from Vista to the so-called Windows 7

- Once and for all, stop getting marketing twisted up with software systems design

Say: "We're sorry"

Microsoft's past - the future to Android's iPhone victory

I just wish RIM was on that sheet

C'mon, oh Canuck buddies, can't we get Research In Motion to enter into this whole mobile-smartphone free-for-all too? The BlackBerry platform should not be such a lonely developer platform, after all............

Hey, beg pardon, should've marked it WOT.

Apple denies iPhone 4 antenna glitch, blames inaccurate signal bars

Shhh, don't pester the Jobstatron when it is diligently at work!

Somehow, I'm sure that a brilliant storyteller, eons down from today, will have discovered a brilliant way to weave the fantastic tales of the Apple company into something fit for children.

I'm thinking of that film, 9, in saying that. Any suggestions?

Computer grads can't even get jobs offering personal services

Inadequate Standards for Such Technical Education → Low quality compsci garduates

Call me a nut - which I'm sure some people would be happy to - but I've been glad to avoid college about comp. sci, if simply to avoid having to inherit any one teacher's personal views of the matters involved with the same (as would well be required that one would at least discern and acknowledge, or just play along with, so in order to pass any one oh-so-beloved course)

I'm sure that most chief boffins would naturally hedge themselves at the accusation, but I proceed about it anyway: I myself don't feel I can be so sure that computer science is actually understood so very well, these days, even by persons electing themselves to teach about it.

I say that not to send off any alarm bells, but rather, to call for a lot more candor, in the comp-sci-school environment

'Huge airships to carry freight starting 10 years from now'

Respectfully, "Meh"

I see. His conjectures, as reported, would pivot on the air-freight carriers' concerns about carbon emissions? Does the eminent boffin really believe as if the companies were really that concerned about carbon emissions? as if the whole carbon emissions game was not just a PR show, after all?

If I was running an air freight carrier, I think reason would serve to dictate that I'd be concerned about safety, foremost - which a well-maintained, well-piloted, effectoively unhijackable air-freight vehicle would be no great concern about , for safety again - and then, timeliness of transport. I don't believe the "carbon footprint" of the operation would ever enter onto the blotter.

Next-day air-by-blimp delivery? Sounds novel, it definitely sounds novel.

World Cup meltdown fails to materialise

Impressive, Actually

30% increase in backbone network traffic? That sounds, to me, like it could serve - to an attentive US-headquartered sports network, for instance, no I'm not thinking ESPN, the other one.... - as something of a benchmark about interest in the World Cup, and the sport of Football/Soccer itself.

But hey, who am *I* to offer business advice to all those perfect experts, up there....

Nokia demos finger flicking exercise for iPhone 4 users

All in good sportsmanship

Maybe a good corporate roasting is just the kind of thing the Jobsatron needs. I think Nokia was actually very mild in their treatment - more to their credit, I suppose.

Government lunatic magnet goes live

Wow. You guys know how to invent a looney magnet?

Seriously - we could use one of those! Somewhere in the middle of Alaska, I think, would be the perfect place for it....

Cheers, 'mates.

Google: Flash stays on YouTube, and here's why

So, it's about more than HTML5

It looks like HTML5 might not ultimately be so much a "winner" - at least not as much as the most naive of us may have hoped - as far as online video content presentation. If the features provided with <strike>Macromedia</strike> Adobe Flash are that much more valuable to the massive online video content provider that is YouTube, I wonder how many other service providers would finally switch over to HTML 5?

Maybe HTML 5 had better "catch up", or maybe people will simply stop representing the discussion *as*if* HTML 5 was even a full alternative to ... Adobe ... Flash.

@The Indomitable Gall: Well, we can download 'em already

The browser naturally downloads video files, in the process of streaming the files. Some browser plugins would extend that functionality into such a form as would allow the user to "cache" the video file, indefinitely.

( IANAL, though I may know how to word some things carefully, in the climate at hand ;)

Two more cents: Even being aware of as much, I myself will still support Google's decision to retain such extensive control over the user's video-viewing experience - such as they explain is possible with Flash and evidently not possible with HTML 5.

There's a lot that, I believe, has not been brought into sufficient study or practice, in either casr, as far as the nature and relevance of human-computer interface design - but, I believe that the Google YouTube "user experience engineers" (if you will) are at least touching on it, productively.

Secret ancient code, basis of all modern civilisation, cracked

"Today our heroes are Einstein and Shakespeare" - O rly?

I thought our heroes, today, were [insert female current pop icon name] and [insert male current pop icon name]. I guess it depends on who you ask, and at what time of day.

Russian spy ring bust uncovers tech toolkit

Doesn't she just have a face...

...that makes you want to divulge every last item about international relations? ><

Aww enough with the cloak-and-dagger games, though, didn't that all knock off with the Iron Curtain already?

But hey, alright, maybe it's kinda "retro" to see it coming up again - Russian spies in the US, I'm sure future game developers will be duly inspired by as much.

Power line tech could crash aircraft and shut down the Archers

Not even a necessary technology

I'm one to side with the folks scratching their heads that this kind of equipment is even allowed, on the market, given the interference it clearly produces. This novel powerline-network technology isn't even necessary - use ordinary network cable, or fiber if you're really feeling speedy.

If the manufacturers can't figure out how to make it work without the bad bleed-over, pull it. It's that simple.

Otherwise, we may as well deregulate every kind of RF-producing device. Microwave ovens blocking cell phone signals for a whole city block, for instance - my, that would be fun, as long as we're getting payed for it!

Apple: we've sold a lot of iPhone 4s

*How* did they arrive at that figure, again?

I'm sorry, but the statistics of this strike me as being very hard to believe. Did they *actually* say 1.7m iPhone 4G units had been sold, in Apple stores or other retail outlets - or even online, let's say - sold to actual customers, by close of business, that day?

Could we see what they actually said? *with* all of the original marketroid double-talk in it? so that we might gauge our own accuracy-meters against that, then?

Thank you, kindly, sers.

Verizon slashes Microsoft Kin phone prices

Oh

So, I guess it could serve to suggest that Microsoft doesn't have the same followship as Apple. Go figure!

Yes, software can be patented, US Supremes say

Huh?

Am I misreading the article? Doesn't it say that they upheld the *denial* of a patent? So what *are* people barking about, here?

Now, what is it - the court's double-talk, about it - though?

Is there anyone around, in El Reg readership, who might actually understand the ruling, and then who would be able to summarize it, in actual, practical terms? No doubt, their decision would serve to establish a legal precedent, if their decision (including the decision as to what they'd say about the ruling) if only it could be *actually* understood.....

Windows 7 SP1 'beta' leaks, hits torrents

Oh, "Commercially Stable." Like Vista was?

:Guffaw:

Me, I'm still being stubborn before lending any further support to Microsoft's continually quizzical approach to quality assurance, in their operating systems - the said things being, are they not, namely the mainstay of the Microsoft product base? Or is Microsoft really there to sell stock shares? I mean, really?

If they're going to try to pull the carpet over the eyes of the corporations, by simply re-branding Vista 1.1 as "Windows 7", I can see their shrewd attempt at marketing, in that, but I must question the ethics of their approach, for their charging for it, as if it was a "new" operating system, rather than just another blasted upgrade.

I'm sure they're armed to the teeth with ways to dissemble about the matter. Isn't that what Microsoft School is for?

Obama Twitter hacker avoids jail

@Apocalypse Later : Thanks for clarifying that

It's easy to get emotional when the courts step in to apply laws and/or develop precedents about such "technical things" as one would give something of a care about.

Nice clarification, then - actual knowledge prevails over emotional jerking of knees, it would seem.

Venus home to lost cities left by long-dead aliens, says ESA

Ok, Goldilocks ><

@Fred 4: I suppose you've never climbed a mountain simply because it was there, friend?

Adventure and innovation tend to go pretty well hand-in-hand together, when adequately backed by industry. Sometimes science has to be a little adventurous, as well.

It begs the question, at least nearly enough: So who will be the first Lewis & Clark of the solar system beyond earth's so-comfortable climes?

Want Olympic tickets? Better get a VisaCard then

Probably nicked a tidy profit on the Visa deal

I'm certain that it's no coincidence that Visa would be the only credit card accepted in the event venues. There's probably some money changed hands, on that - "probably", as in, "I see no question about it, though I do not have the credible proof in my hands, about it." For the goofy mascots and the goofy credit scheme, I'd say, dash it - except for the performances of the athletes, which is the real point of the Olympics, isn't it still? Have we given up on *that* tradition?

...and the performances of the fans enjoying the events, I suppose. It begs the question: So which pub will be the first to offer a gold medal in table fusball? or rapid-fire body-shots? Triathlon of pubbery? C'mon, there must be some fun left in the old town...

Flying-boat tiltrotor catamaran design wins NASA compo

Helicopters not good enough, any more? Whah?

I applaud another effort from NASA for sponsoring innovation in engineering. However, I'm not convinced as to the actual aerial/sea/ground-based utility and necessity of such innovative vehicle designs - or whether those designs would really add so much to the features of the existing rotary-wing helicopter platforms, and without detracting too much, on basis of costs of manufacturing and maintenance.

But hey, if the pres says you can't go back to the moon, after all, have to look somewhere to keep things going, right?

'World's No. 1 hacker' tome rocks security world

0.0002 a share? No way!

Can we hit the 0.2E-10 envelope? I bet we can!

Twitter on a ZX Spectrum

My imagination has been fired, time and again.

At least it knows how to get sodding drunk, between jobs.

Nice tour of some computing history. Here's to recognizing that there *is* such a thing as history. After all. Or before all. Or somewhere in there. Cheers, anyway.

The Reg guide to Linux, part 1: Picking a distro

Aww, have a heart, friend

Gentoo sure too could be worth a bother ;)

I'm partial to those Linux distros that put all the free beer into a set of convenient pint glasses, I'll admit, but the home brewery approach is just as well, if that's what someone's after - as far as I'm concerned. Viva el libertad. and free/open source software too. and free beer, if one may.

Ubuntu v iTunes: the music playoff for Applephobes

Beg pardon, but KDE apps don't run "in GNOME"

There's a technical mistake that's been made, which I can't help but want to comment on. I'll try to stay respectful, to explain this as well as I understand it, myself, and not get silly with any kind of torch, flame-thrower, or other fire-producing device.

GTK apps, QT apps, libXt apps, TCL's Tk apps, ... these all run in X-Windows.

GNOME and KDE are desktop environments, featuring some GUI components that also run in X-WIndows.

GNOME apps use GTK widgets.

KDE apps use QT widgets.

Except for desktop-environment configuration applications, other applications don't run specifically "in" any one desktop environment or another.

The meeting-space between a given desktop environment and the X Windows system is largely of an abstract nature.

To keep it simple: KDE apps don't need anything more to run in GNOME than they would need to run in KDE - and vice-versa.

"KDE apps", as it might be said, are - essentially - applications using QT widgets and the further system services provided by the K Desktop Environment.

In a similar sense, "GNOME apps" use GTK widgets and services provided by the GNOME desktop environment.

The services of each respective desktop environment can be running simultaneously.

Odds are, if you're seeing any kind of a graphical application on a Linux platform, either it's running in an X Windows client/server session, or else, by the magic of SDL. In such a case as the former, It's X-Windows that makes that graphical stuff happen - not, insomuch, either of GNOME or KDE.

I'm no master of details, about this material, but I'm pretty well aware of how it fits together. Maybe it would suffice it to say that to suggest that KDE apps would need anything additional to run alongside GNOME is pretty-much inaccurate - and it seems, to me, that it would be a matter of oversimplification. I realize, it must've been unintentional. It's one of those details, though, that can get under the skin of some "Linux veterans" ;) Some matters of inaccuracy, as well, would make it harder to resolve issues that would result from confusion consequent with those matters of inaccuracy.

Not to make it out as if to be any more than it was - I say, an inaccurate statement, as to how the system actually operates, as it were, "Under the hood"

That said: Hey thanks for lending some exposure about Linux. The typical Linux software developer might be anything but a marketing genius, after all ;)

Cheers!

Watch bandit IDed by own mobe snap

Cute on the clever tech

...not so cute, albeit, in the mugshot ><

But hey, that was a clever move, on the investigator's part. Another techie human-interest piece hits the wire - without marketroid influence, even! Thanks, El Reg.

FCC takes baby step towards net neutrality

Oh, congressional business experts

How many of the respected congresspersons are simply regurgitating what's been fed to them by lobbying experts?

Hidden in plain view: Google Music's stealth infrastructure

I don't expect IP enthusiasts are too nationally concerned

( @ AC 11:05 )

...in fact, I think they're watching out for their own corporate bottom lines, and I don't believe it goes any further than that. Creator rights? A scrap to the musicians, to keep the musicians happy in the production work.

II believe that they'd also like to believe that the entire collected legal resources of the nation are behind them, in their crusade - I'm not aware of their being proved wrong, in that, so far - and that it's them vs. the morass of spoiled "little people".

I don't believe it's really so simple, though - or so simple, in *that* way, at least - once the surface of the matter has been scratched. There are more stakeholders in the equation than the self-beloved IP enthusiasts and the formal corporate and individual music rights holders. There's also we, the consumers. Who's speaking for us, then?

Tech resource woes won't be solved with Afghan minerals

That's one mighty grain of salt, friend

Complete objectivity and in-depth fact-checking, backed with an actual, genuinely experienced view, on the subject matter ... in reporting? Wow! I think the space-time continuum just ruptured....