Posts by Matt 52

Cloudflare builds an AI to lead AI scraper bots into a horrible maze of junk content

Ironic

Recent estimate is 10% of online content is created by AI - so we now have AI articles being used to replace AI articles.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Re: Too early.

Real-world fully autonomous self-driving Tesla mode tested - the good and the bad of it;

https://youtu.be/ZLBR39RcyiU (Snazzy Labs video)

In summary, it has a long way to go, and heavily relies on mapping services in cities. Is it achievable - yes. Will it be in the next couple of years or so - probably not.

Experimental WebAssembly port of LibreOffice released

Loaded in Edge v98 without error

Took about 5 seconds on a FTH connection, after which I was greeted by a User Interface that looked like it had been designed by a 5 year old with crayons.

I internally screamed in pain at the sight of it.

It took me less than 5 seconds to close it, hoping to erase its image from my mind.

The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror

Re: Excessive - but a Space Camera Drone?

They're called spy satellites - unfortunately they're all pointing towards Earth, and can't repurpose one because then someone would have to admit they exist and are able to do it all

Windows Subsystem for Android: What's the point?

Google Play Store on Win11

For those who missed it, getting Google Play Store running on Win11 has been hitting up news sites recently. It's on my list of things to play with this weekend, being I'm in the UK and it doesn't appear to require any of the limitations (US, Beta, etc) that the official package suffers from...

https://github.com/ADeltaX/WSAGAScript

All I want for Christmas is a delivery address that a delivery courier can find

3 words

It's beyond me why all courier companies don't allow you to provide a what3words location for delivery. It's not like they'd even have to pay for the service as there's a re-implementation in GitHub (pballett/whatfreewords). A relatively small cost of implementation versus a comparatively huge cost of repeated delivery attempts - no brainer?

Office 2019 lumbers to the stage once more as Microsoft promises future releases

Re: Classified and commercially sensitive documents?

This is almost certainly the last version of Office our org will ever use; we will *never* use a cloud service, and i can say that emphatically - recognising how long "never" really is

Off we go to LibreOffice from around 2021 i should think

Another way to avoid eye contact: 4G on the Tube expected 'in 2019'

Pfft...

I'd rather they figured out how to fit air-con.

Windows 10 in head-on crash with Nvidia drivers as world watches launch

Roaming

So if MS is forcing updates on me, are they also going to pay for my mobile roaming charges when using my laptop overseas and it forces some mega-Mb update to download?

This is the most stupid idea since.... oh, i dunno.... since Windows 8, maybe?

Yes, i do know about their tool - but if we read the support article it allows you to uninstall an update, not prevent them being installed. Quote

"If a driver or update you are being offered is causing system crashes or instability and Windows was operating correctly prior to that update, you can follow these instructions to prevent the unwanted driver or update from being installed:"

Notice the "... and Windows was operating prior to that update". It just means you can uninstall it and flag it as not to be installed again. Doesn't mean I can block any future updates cos I'd incur mega-bucks worth of mobile data charges.

Amazon threatens UK with James Blunt, muscles into music streaming

It's broken...

APM doesn't recognise you as a Prime subscriber if you have both a .co.uk and a .com account with Prime only on the .co.uk (as i suspect a lot of people have).

Their tech support is amazingly helpful (yep, that's sarcasm, in case you were wondering)

"I'm sorry to hear that you are unable to play Amazon Prime Music even though you have subscribed for Amazon Prime Membership. We are aware of this issue, and our developers are working on a solution"

Pretty damn obvious thing to have tested before release i'd have thought, but apparently not.

Sonos burns its Bridges: Our home-grown Wi-Fi mesh will do

Eh?

Still a ridiculously expensive way to buy poor quality speakers.

Is the answer to life, the universe and everything hidden in Adams' newly uncovered archive?

Re: The ultimate question of life the universe and everything.

Reminds me of a daft joke...

Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: 10 ... One to hold the ladder and one to swap the bulbs over.

eBay faces multiple probes into mega-breach

Techno babble bull

I'm sorry, but who does this spokeswoman think she's fooling

" Spokeswoman Amanda Miller has said that the website uses “sophisticated, proprietary hashing and salting technology to protect passwords”

All that means is they combine the fields and add a salt, which is rule #1 in the 101 list of things to do for a user's password

Unfortunately, rule #2 is "Do not store the password in the same database as the username, but use a unique foreign field to map between two separate tables in two separate databases"

If only they had got as far as reading rule #2. Incompetent idiots!

GNOME 3.12: Pixel perfect ... but homeless

Re: Nope

I agree and I use Ubuntu all day, every day. Not because I'm especially a Linux geek but because I develop LAMP websites and it makes sense to do so. For as long as a terminal or text editor to change a config file is needed for anything then Linux won't go mainstream. Look at OSx - the average user would never know it's BSD Unix underneath, but if you want or need the raw power of a command line then it's still there.

Help a hack: What's in your ultimate Windows XP migration toolkit?

Not strictly answering the question....

... Won't help the migration, but if you have one then a spare PC with 2 NICs to leave behind with Sophus UTM or Untangle, Squid and FreeNAS running as VMs to give them a free but enterprise class firewall with caching, anti-spam, web filters and shared drives. Sophus UTM has a free non-commercial version for up to 50 people, and Untungle has a "lite" version.

Easy enough to setup the VMs and internal network under VirtualBox before you even leave the office and massively improve their experience. I'd run it under a Ubuntu LTS release rather than buy another windows licence, but that's me :)

Windows 8.1 becomes world's fourth-most-popular desktop OS

Not to be picky, but...

When I saw those stats I didn't believe them - less than 10% of "world market" for Android, iOS, etc? Couldn't be true. This is important, because if I don't believe one number then I have zero confidence in any of the other numbers.

Checking the referenced, source these stats are only for *Desktop* browsers and not for *All* browsers.

A small thing, but it makes a big difference when trying to evaluate whether or not I believe the article...

Not so fast, BlackBerry. Now Samsung wants your tasty biz mobe pie

Off target

I don't care about separate personal and corporate; give me an alternative to encrypted comms and BES so CESG will approve something other than blackberry devices for mobile email... it's actually why I'm praying that BB10 will fail and the company go bust so they HAVE to approve something else :)

Not done yet: Oracle to ship revised Java fix on February 19

Too late

Java is banished from all my PCs and I will not be re-installing it.

Ofcom: Fancy running a temporary HD Freeview TV channel?

Why...?

Does anyone actually watch broadcasts now? I thought that was why any new TV came with BBC IPlayer et al?

'Build us a Death Star, President Obama' demand thousands

$852,000,000,000,000,000

That's how much it would cost..... oh, and it'd take 0.8 million years to complete.

http://www.centives.net/S/2012/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/

AMD palms PCs with LiveBox miniature desktop

Pins on the case? Stupid idea - means multiple redesigns for international sale as in most countries equipment must be sold fitted with the right pins for that country's sockets, no adaptors allowed

Google Wallet PIN security cracked in seconds

How stupid can you get?

What Eejit thought that a 4-digit PIN was sufficiently secure in the first place to secure access to credit card details, irrespective of whether you need a rooted phone to get to the hash?

It's not a card you're putting into a hole-in-the-wall machine, it's a phone! Jeez! Did someone go beat the google softies with a stupid stick or something?

Dunno about Chocolate Factory, perhaps we should now call them "Chocolate Fire guard" as they're obviously about as useful as one of those.

Ofcom: ISPs can cripple the web as much as they please

Perhaps not

See this on the inquirer.net;

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2127546/eu-court-justice-rules-isp-filters-prohibited-eu-law?WT.rss_f=Home&WT.rss_a=EU+Court+of+Justice+rules+that+ISP+filters+are+prohibited+under+EU+law

Blocking of sites is illegal under European law (best tell BT they need to unblock the newzbin site pretty quickly) but providing some sites at a slower speed than others would probably be ok

Apple gets patent for ‘unlock gesture’

Up yours Apple

I've just received provisional patent approval for a gesture whereby I extend the middle digit of either hand whilst keeping the other digits clenched into my palm, rotate my hand so that the finger nail of my extended digit points towards Apple and I them raise and lower it repeatedly ....

I hereby freely licence my patent to anyone who doesn't work for Apple

MySQL founder savages Oracle’s move to 'open core'

Nothing new...

Enterprise monitor?

Move along.... nothing to see here.

The Register Guide to London's Silicon Roundabout Tech Startups

Javascript Mystique

A fantastic idea; not checking the return value of javascript functions. We could call this new language construct a "procedure", and then extend the language so the parameters could be identified as as IN, OUT or IN OUT allowing control over whether or not the variable passed in as a parameter was read-only, write-only or read/write.

I think I'm going to extend javascript for these functions, and give it an up-to-the-minute name; how about "Modula-2.0"? ;)

Microsoft offers Azure virgins 'small' VM concession

Article is incorrect

The Microsoft Website states that data transfer covers 500MB in / 500MB out

The weakest link in Software as a Service

nail, head... contact!

As a SaaS provider, my research and feedback within the general computing community aligns with this survey; i.e. Security is the primary concern. As you rightly highlight, its not so much physical security, but data security - how can you even tell if a data breach has occurred and your data compromised? Lets not forget there's a major(!) SaaS CRM provider who is reported to host all user entered data and information IN THE SAME DATABASE as for every other customer! If a single Actor gains access to the database with escalated privileges then they get everything from every one.

Personally, the thought of using many of the online office suites and other applications spinging up causes me to come out in hives and run around screaming in fear. IMHO you'd have to be very brave(!) to use a SaaS application for anything that's businesses related without a thorough due diligence investigation on the provider and obtain a 3rd party penetration test report to consider using them. Alternatively avoid them like the plague if they won't comply - including Google. If they're not serious about protecting your data, then they don't deserve your business.

Google patents search that tracks your mouse moves

Maybe, just maybe...

Hurrah! Maybe Google will now figure out that in the 10+ years I've been using the internet, I've never, ever, ever clicked on an advert and will finally stop showing them to me!!!