Posts by davemcwish

Adobe spies on readers: 'EVERY page you turn, EVERY book you own' leaked back to base

Re: Default deny!

Yup that's why you need a firewall tool. Mines called Little Snitch.

Legal Blackhole

I'm not a lawyer but the terms and conditions paragraph provides plenty of wriggle room.

"We will not access, view, or listen to any of your content, except as reasonably necessary to perform the Services."

Crucial word here is 'except'; until it's challenged in a court, this gives them free reign to do what they will. It's the same rationale unregulated 3 letter state security agencies and the UK police using RIPA use to do things that others feel invades on their privacy i.e. if we didn't do this then blah blah....terrorists...blah blah...paedophiles....blah blah you'll all be murdered in your beds....blah blah blah...

US Attorney Gen latest to roast Apple, Google mobe encryption

Re: Theresa May was playing the same card during yesterday's conference speach.

Yup they're all at it and incompetence from the plod and other agencies responsible in e.g. Rotherham and Doncaster is used to scare the public and unfortunately it works. I'm not suggesting that they are deliberately being incompetent but it's certainly helping the authoritarian case

Microsoft WINDOWS 10: Seven ATE Nine. Or Eight did really

Re: Death support systems

Surely Clippy would say

"How about a nice game of minesweeper?

Fraud shop OVERSTOCKED with stolen credit cards

Re: This will be interesting to watch

It's realpolitik in this case my enemy's (Russia) enemy (Ukraine) is my friend.

Good grief! Have you seen BlackBerry's square smartphone?

Re: So clearly square phone

Yup, I've got a vernier caliper if the El reg subs want to check.

Apple iPhone 6: Looking good, slim. AW... your battery died

Re: 2 year phone cycle

If I was to identify a strategy it would be 'SIM only Handset -1" i.e. wait till the fanbois and girls upgrade then buy up their 1 year old rejects off fleabay. Currently I can get an unlocked 64gb for £400 which I can couple with a £15/month 3g sim only deal from Virgin (250 mins/unlimited texts+data) used on my 4s.

I really can't see a compelling case, other than 'I've got a new shiny shiny', in upgrading every year either just to fill Apple's and the network providers coffers. OK I don't get tethering or 4g with Virgin but the comparative 1 year costs for a the same handset and 4gb data are not far off a grand for the first year (VF is £971 for 3g). If I really felt I needed 4g or another provider I can easily get 4g 4Gb sim only for <£25/month.

Don't buy that phone! It ATTRACTS CRIMINALS, UK.gov will tell people

Lamb to the slaughter

It's been done in fiction

NUDE SELFIE CLOUD PERV menace: Apple 2FA? Sweet FA, more like

Re: Security questions?

@TheCostElc

Octarine.

Virgin Media blocks 'wankers' from permissible passwords

Cockwomble

Is also not allowed due to it not being the requsite 9 characters long - as is the XKCD example.

Phab-u-less: Huge MONSTER iPhone 6 not due until 2015 – claim

my girlfriend flushed her 5S down the toilet

I've heard of this failure mode and always wondered how to perform it. Any insight ?

Sony CEO forced to shush shareholder heckling at fiery AGM

VIAO Quality

Not surprised. Bought the SWMBO a laptop, lasted < 2 years before it died due to a system board issue. Local shop was unable to source the spare part.

Top 10 tech essentials for the festival season

Solar

Backpack looks good. I've got the combination of Powermonkey Extreme and Spidermonkey that works well. Even when not camping, or if I've got a leccy hookup, the Spidermonkey obviates the need for multiple power adapters.

Supermodel Lily Cole: 'I got a little bit upset by that Register article'

Re: And now they're encouraging flyposting.

and in airplane toilets apparently.

Looking this morning there seems to be some trolling going on

"I wish someone would pull the plug on this site, shut it down so it stops wasting taxpayers money. #somethingelse"

and the greedy

"I wish a #Canon EOS 5D Mark III, a Canon 17-40mm and a MacBook Pro 13" 2,4 GHz. #secondhand #thank_you"

GAME ON: Top 10 tellies for a World Cup kicking

Being an impoverished new dad

supporting a team that didn't get anywhere close to qualifying I'll give these a miss unless anyone wants to swap their fancy thin one for my 36" CRT. You come and collect though as at 72kg I ain't dhifying it as it's heavier than me.

NSA: Inside the FIVE-EYED VAMPIRE SQUID of the INTERNET

Americans

I suspect the view that the NSA is in the wrong here is from a distinct but vocal minority, the rest don't care or actively support.

I spoke to my former US boss last year around the time the Snowden leaks came out. His view was fully supportive of the NSA as the ROW is full of "bad guys" and he expected the US "good guys" to do whatever it takes.

All of the brouhaha is really unnecessary:-

1. Governments need to protect their interests

2. To achieve this they spy on each other and as they don't trust the public they spy on them.

3. They will use their authority to oblige the tech companies to make it easier to do #2.

4. Voting only changes who sits in the posh seats in national Parliaments; #1 stays the same.

Still using e-mail? Marketers say you're part of DARK SOCIAL

Re: I thought DARK SOCIAL...

Yes I have and it's one key

Brits to vote: Which pressing scientific challenge should get £10m thrown at it?

Re: They missed a trick...

"I'll start the ball rolling. What am I bid for my 2/3?"

A second-hand iPhone

Cisco's Chambers to Obama: Stop fiddling with our routers

Re: The grooming period is over

Apart from those it's also the fact that they think there are a lot of 'bad guys' and they need 'our good guys' (NSA etc) to keep them safe.

A premium smartie lump: Oppo N1 CyanogenMod Edition

On the plus side

the swivel camera is a clear differentiator from the rest of the current crop, not withstanding other commentards historical examples; it would be interesting to see how it lines up against the competitors particularly in low light.The software looks ok without the useless bloatware other droid handset have.

Having said that the rest of the hardware spec particularly absence of SD card is a major failing so thanks Oppo but no thanks. I'm a bit surprised really as their Blu-Ray offering is fairly highly regarded in comparison to the competition; they do have a higher level handset 'Find 7' though so maybe El Reg can get a review sample..

OpenBSD founder wants to bin buggy OpenSSL library, launches fork

Re: Never mind Comic Sans

There should be a 2nd donate button to keep annoying the hipsters.

Audio fans, prepare yourself for the Second Coming ... of Blu-ray

Re: A good whine

Don't forget your £1600 1m ethernet cable

My work-from-home setup's better than the office. It's GLORIOUS

Chicken Choking

Is this a dig by a sub-editor who knows Storagebod's behaviours when 'working from home' ?

Yes! New company smartphones! ... But I don't WANT one

Too much selection...

Looking at the current offerings, albeit from an end/personal user I can understand Trevor's position. Being a 4s user I've got locked into the iTunes/iOS app ecosystem so changing would be difficult but not impossible. I've been very happy and to be honest, apart from the lack of storage (yes I'd like more than 64Gb) and my use case changing towards needing a bigger screen (I mainly use it as a small portable tablet with a phone attached) a slightly larger screen would help. Given that it would be a single device a large phablet (e..g Sony Xperia Z Ultra) would be too large; 5" would probably be sufficient.Other than that there's nothing currently out their that has a compelling case for me to change; even if it breaks, a 4s from fleabay, where I got my corrent one from, would be the obvious choice dependent on 5s availability/cost. I don't really see a compelling vision to move to the Android ecosystem.

As others have said, the win pc/laptop market lost traction as it got to maturity with functionality broadly similar with very little differentiation other than the case, badge and screen size. I suspect that the handset is getting to a similar position much quicker and I can't really see what the next big jump will be.

Sandisk breaks 128GB barrier with new $199 MICROSD card

Re: "The Cloud"

The utility/service model, with costs for 100Gb are ~$10/month, is the one the industry wants you to have with its ongoing payments, uncertain terms and conditions and dubious privacy policy. Had I a non fruity device that could make use of external cards I would use them, not just because I don't trust the cloud providers. The other factor is connectivity with UK providers seeming to prefer well-populated areas so they can flog their premium priced 4G product at them and leaving those out in the 'arse-end of nowhere' (everywhere they can't make a big fat profit) to cope with a barely functional 3G if they're lucky.

Retiring greybeards force firms to retrain Java, .NET bods as mainframe sysadmins

Re: COBOL

And TELON....

Better late than never: Monster 15-core Xeon chips let loose by Intel

Wither 'Lockstep'

For Paris and us uneducated plebs, why is 'Lockstep' (or equivalent marketing buzzword) important and why specifically for Financial transactions ?

It's big, it's expensive and it's an audiophile's dream: The Sonos Sub

We've had to save up our pennies

Don't you have enough clout to blag a review sample ?

Volunteers slam plans to turn Bletchley Park into 'geeky Disneyland'

Re: Time for The Register to weigh in methinks.

Another reason is that he's done an introduction to the 'multimedia visitors guide'.

http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/news/v.rhtm/New_for_Summer_2013_Multimedia_Guide-697252.html

I suspect that the ultimate aim is to dispense with the warm bodies and use gadgets instead.

Re: Whilst I want Bletchley to keep going

@fixit_f There's also a sequel to that book called "Far From the Sodding Crowd", have got both. Agree with all the comments. The success, or otherwise, of these places is that it's the knowledge of the guides that crucial not some standard script designed to maximize the throughput of guests by minimizing questions for which a detailed answer is required.

Achtung NIMBYs! BT splurges extra £50m on fibre broadband rollout

Rake in the £15+ per month per install in line rental

it's not just BT that do this.

Alcatel-Lucent and BT unveil super fat pipe, splurt out 1.4Tb per second across London

Re: Another way of looking at it...

130 for me...

Re: 5-month-long grumble flick

"21 and a half weeks" (sequel to the Kim Basinger effort)

Plusnet is working on a network-level filter to block pirate sites

Re: You've been barrelled

I've been with Zen for the last 10 years and with only 1 minor outage been very happy. I won't upgrade to fibre as they want £4.50 / month premium unless I also take their phone package.

If/when the time comes that I need fibre I'll probably have to go elsewhere.

Haribo gummy bears implicated in 'gastric exorcism'

'news' paper for stupid people in the UK.....

@ISYS Daily Mail surely ?

iPhone fanbois outsmart fandroids in totally reliable test of brain power

Re: Not what it's cracked up to be

Glad someone else spotted the mistake with the 9s question. I made the same assumption only I'm not a coward...

Ten classic electronic calculators from the 1970s and 1980s

Way back when I were a youth

I (like John Naismith) sat my 'O' grades one of which was Arithmetic - a completely separate exam to 'Mathematics' and all we were allowed was the little grey paper book of log tables.

As for devices I still have my Casio 7000G & 8000G and a Ti-89 Titanium all working.

Unlocking CryptoLocker: How infosec bods hunt the fiends behind it

Re: Offer a reward

I suspect that if that was offered, the actual reward will be:-

life of anonymous luxury = encaration in a United States Naval Station

on some hot island = Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

No anon pr0n for you: BT's network-level 'smut' filters will catch proxy servers too

Re: This is going to end badly

Twilight Zone was better IMHO

Analogue radio will CONTINUE in Blighty as Minister of Fun dodges D-Day death sentence

Is there still a significant use case?

Given the high costs of DAB licences and the content providers' (can we silll call them broadcasters) ability to stream in higher quality, is there a compelling case for DAB these days ? I'm not sure even in a car the case holds as it's technically possible, though not yet prevalent, to pair your car audio to your phone (assuming that it's got sufficient internet connectivity).

It seems that internet streaming is where things are headed; I don't have the comparitive costs compared with AM/FM/DAB licencing so maybe I'm wrong..

Station to station: Ten DAB-Bluetooth combo radios

Re: Why spend a fortune on BT DAB dock

Probably because it assums that you've got an internet connection for your device. I suspect that the use case for these is for those occations where you don't.

Thought of in-flight mobile calls fills you with dread? Never fear, US Dept of Transport is here

Reminds me on that great scene from The West Wing

FLIGHT ATTENDANT 3

Mr. Ziegler? A message was just patched up to the cockpit for you. I'm not sure I've got it right. POTUS in a bicycle accident?

TOBY

[stops typing and looks up] You got it right. [reaches for his cell phone]

FLIGHT ATTENDANT 2

You can't use your phone until we land, sir.

TOBY

We're flying in a Lockheed eagle series L-1011. It came off the line 20 months ago and carries a Sim-5 Transponder tracking system. Are you telling me I can still flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack?

FLIGHT ATTENDANT 2

You can call when we land, sir.

TOBY

[calling as she walks away] Also, I never got my peanuts.

Ten top tech toys to interface with a techie’s Christmas stocking

Re: re: that's when Betty is on most channels...

Re:Phil

Nope Brenda's (QE2) husband was 'Keith'.

Microsoft touts SCROOGLE merch: Hopes YOU'LL PAY to dump on rival

c) Do nothing

Right, that's IT: We'll encrypt INTERNAL traffic to thwart NSA - Yahoo

Who cares ?

IMHO this is, for the majority of people, a non issue because they don't comprehend the issue, have better things to do or as a US collegue I was talking to last week believes, there are so many bad guys out there that there is the need for the government (the good guys) to do whatever it takes to keep him safe.

As for CEO Marissa Meyer's comments, they are just PR to the semi-litterate on the subject; the NSA doesn't need access to her datacentre when as AC indicates, they can just tap into the IXPs. We just need to accept that governments have unlimited resources and expertise so anything we do on the internet can be traced. The same goes for the commercial organizations we give our data via our usage and buying habits; that's before I get started on 'loyalty cards'.

If you really are that paranoid then you should stay as anonymous as possible starting with getting off the internet.

The ULTIMATE cuppa showdown: And the winner is...

As for the food

I need to find a better chippie, the Spanish example puts most of my local establishments to shame.

BT Sport scores own goal with £897m Champions League footie rights deal

Rural Broadband

Shouldn't they be concentrating on spending the £1.2bn of public money on rural broadband like they were supposed to or doesn't that give them the required media exposure ?

KRAKOOM! iPad Air explose in fireball, terrified fanbois flee Apple store

Re: "therefore a bit rubbish when you remember how exciting the first one was all those years ago"

@Duncant You do know that 'The latest Ford Escort' is now a decade or so old don't you ? Other than pristine ones for vintage collectors and the Cossie variant, provided it's not been ragged, they are a bit rubbish compated to their modern equivalents, made by FMC or not.

Alarming tales: What goes on INSIDE Reg hack's hi-tech bedroom

Re: Great business idea!

Maybe not with the cream, but you can, at least in my part of England, get porridge that only needs water. So all you need to do is to dig out your retro teasmade and you're done.

BBC's Clangers returns in £5m 'New Age' remake

"Reinvention"

Quote:-

The new Clangers will explore themes including "community and caring for the planet", with Firmin pere promising "a new Clangers for a New Age."

Oh dear....

I do understand that that the original series had some similar themes but it sounds like they'll spoil it by going overboard ......