Posts by 45RPM

Ubuntu 12.10: More to Um Bongo Linux than Amazon ads

So what?

I like Ubuntu. I like what they're doing with Unity - it's brave, and God knows that the Linux GUI world needs some bravery. Sure, it's often a step back - but it will lead to a better desktop eventually, I'm certain of it. Mac OS X 10.0 was such a step back that it was actually unusable. Vista was, well, Vista - unfortunately. Progress sometimes means temporary sacrifice (sadly, it sometimes means permanent sacrifice too!)

As for the shopping lens, yes, it's tacky. Yes, I don't like it. But look at it this way, there's no such thing as a free lunch - and Ubuntu is a very tasty lunch indeed. Pay up, cheapskates - and by paying you'll either have to put up with Amazon (and maybe buy once in a while, ensuring the future of Ubuntu) or put in a little effort to disable this lens.

As for me, I shall install Quetzal. But I'm really looking forward to:

Randy Rhino

Sexy Squirrel

Tarty Toucan

…and so forth. Well, we've had Whorey Hedgehog, so why not?

Vote now for the ultimate bacon sandwich

Anti-Fraud Voting working too well!

I guess it must be an anti-fraud system, but my colleagues and I eagerly started voting for the sublime Ungilded Sourdough from Salvation Jane - and the number of votes registered actually dropped. So did the penny - I suspect that we all appear to be on the same IP. Fsck.

Never mind. Sod the vote. But do yourselves all a favour and get down to Salvation Jane - it's well worth it. As for most of the other sandwiches (well, some of them anyway) I shall try them out. They look delicious! But seeds, nuts and cheese will always be an abomination in my mind, at least as far as a good butty is concerned!

Good effort Lester, by the way. This is exactly what The Register should be all about!

Eric Schmidt: Ha ha, NO Google maps app for iPhone 5

iOS users don't need maps…

…they just blindly follow everyone else!

Re: What about iCloud?

O Rly? How can that be given that Apple no longer hosts other people's web sites (that functionality was dropped with MobileMe)

UK.gov's web filth block plan: Last chance to speak your brains

A scandalous invasion of privacy

If I want to enjoy a picture or two of beavers and pussies, frolicking in their natural habitat, enjoying the company of one eyed snakes and a hairy clam or two then I should be allowed to and without having to apply for a special exemption (whose details will doubtless be made public, if accidentally, along with my phone number and inside leg measurement).

It is the duty of every parent to ensure that their computer network is secure - and, if centralized controls must be provided, then surely the way to do it is to make it easy for people to opt out of, rather than opt in to, smut. Similarly, every parent must make sure that their alcohol, heroin and supply of washing liquitabs is out of reach of their dear little darlings. I ensure that my children are out of the room when I hide the sausage, but I don't want the government to strap a chastity belt on me just in case I lose any sense of propriety.

On this matter though, I confess I find it hard to care very much. I care in the intellectual sense that I object to any damn fool attempt to deprive me of my liberties, and I wonder how thick the wedge is going to get. I care because, whilst the children (oh, think of the poor dear little children) won't get to see images that show how they were made they'll still be able to watch guns being shot and get plastic weapons. Seriously, man, that's fucked up. Make love, not war. I don't really care in this instance though, because it's not going to affect my lifestyle - and the Man hasn't come for me. Yet.

Apple Mac OS X Server for Mountain Lion review

Re: Okay, and now from someone who knows…

Okay. Now we're seriously off topic. In my experience, only SQL Server is faster on Windows than it is on Linux - and that's only because SQL Server doesn't run on Linux. If you've managed different, then that's great - I tip my hat to you.

Taking specific examples - which I admit are very esoteric, and of interest only to very few people, Windows time accuracy isn't worthy of the name. It's out by several orders of magnitude for what I require. Network performance is horrible. If I want to capture at 10Gbps line rate, without loss, on Windows then I can whistle. On Linux, it's eminently feasible. In fact, I can do 20Gbps (two 10Gbps networks), writing to RAID. Scheduler latency is ridiculous. Schedule and wait for a bloody long time (in CPU terms).

Add to all this the fact that the more clients I have the more I have to pay, and yes. I stand by my argument.

Yes, Microsoft has its own protocols. That's the problem. They're its own protocols. They aren't open. Batch file language is woeful and, whilst Powershell scripting is a huge improvement, it still isn't great. And again I say, it's Windows only. Microsoft has locked you in to its system. So we'll take Mac OS X as an example (because Apple is every Windows fanboy's poster child for the ultimate lock in system): If I use OS X to write a script (bash, perl, whatever) then guess what? Not only does it work perfectly on the Mac, it'll also likely work perfectly on every other damn system except Windows - and if changes are needed, they'll be minor in nature. So I can take my code and run on Haiku, Linux, Solaris etc etc. The same is true of compiled languages - provided that I steer clear of the GUI or restrict myself to X11.

Here's the thing. I value difference. I really like what Canonical is doing with Unity. I like the !Metro UI (on Windows phone, at least). OS X is a joy to use. It's all great. But, much as I value difference, I love compatibility. I love being able to take the only things that have real value on my computer (the code that I write) and put them on any other OS with only minimal effort. Windows tries to lock me in. It uses its own standards, not open standards, and I do not appreciate that at all.

Re: possibly the first Apple product that I really want to try out

For this use case, you really can't do better than Synology I reckon. It's what I use at home, and if you don't need something to serve Apple client systems seamlessly then a Synology is about as good as you can get. Sure, for a pure Mac setup then a Mac OS X Server system is as good as it gets, but for a mixed ecosystem (I'm running Windows, Linux, RISC OS, Mac OS X and AU/X (because I like retro!)), Synology is perfect. It's cheaper too.

Re: Okay, and now from someone who knows…

1.) Nope. I assure you that I'm not. And compared with Linux, Windows Server really is a POS PITA. It's slow (databases are faster on Linux, kernel latency is bad, network performance isn't great). Uptime isn't as good as Linux - we have to restart every six months, or it gets seriously flaky. Stuff that should be standard has to be installed separately, and often from a third party (ssh, for one, perl for another - but I could go on). And so on.

2.) I totally agree that you need more than a month to understand an OS properly. No disagreement here. My point was that you can't really comment unless you've had a month of immersion. I've been 'doing' Windows on servers since NT4 (in 1997, and I know that plenty of people here will be able to go back to NT3.x - not me though), VMS since 1992, OS X since 2001, and Linux since 2005 (I came rather late to the party, but once I got there I liked what I saw).

Re: SMBs?

No. Not necessarily. In this case, only if your career includes extensive use of Mac OS X Server. If, on the other hand, you've never used Mac OS X Server in anger then you're no more qualified to discuss its merits than am I to discuss whether the Rocketdyne F1 is a better engine than the Kuznetsov NK-33.

Re: SMBs?

Hmm. Do you actually have any experience though (other than 'I read it somewhere')?

Re: SMBs?

Speaking from personal experience, and once you factor in support costs, nothing is cheaper than a Mac setup. The up front capital expenditure is higher - but that up-front expenditure is quickly recouped in lower support spend.

Okay, and now from someone who knows…

At my 'work' work, we use Windows Server (endless headaches, pain in the arse) and Linux (excellent, if not the easiest to configure) running on DL360, DL380 and BL460 hardware (which is very nice, except for the BL460 which only appears to be nice until you try to use it).

My sister runs her own business with about 40 employees, many of whom are jetting all over the world. I do their IT for them on a part time basis and so, given that I have a day job to contend with and I really don't want to be mucking around with support all the time, I set them up with Macs. Best idea I ever had - I haven't had a support call in about six months (that one took about 5 minutes to resolve, and turned out to the ISP at fault).

As her business grew, we decided that she really needed her own server to handle her company address books (with around 6,000 contacts at the current time), calendar, mail, software updates, FTP server / cloud storage and so forth. Xserve being rather out of budget, and a little too pricey, we settled on a pair on Minis and a UPS. Do you know what? They do the job perfectly. Because they're a pair, we've managed 100% uptime so far (which just goes to show what one person and no bureaucracy can achieve) - when one needs to be upgraded, the other takes the load and vice versa. They're running Leopard Server - no need to be state of the art with this, and they can't run anything much newer anyway (they're early 32bit Intel Core Duo - so SL is the best they can do) - they're getting rather long in the tooth now. Are they scheduled to be replaced? Nope. Not yet. We have a spare unit - and when one fails I'll replace it immediately (with the aforementioned spare) and buy new Mac Minis then. Reckon that'll be years yet though.

So yes, Macs do make sense - even for fairly large small businesses. I get to do my day job, and she gets to run her business without bothering me for support issues. I do understand the head-in-the-sand mentality that Macs can't hack it. A Mac is a little different, and one can never appreciate the benefits of a new system based on a cursory glance. I reckon a months immersion is the minimum requirement before one is qualified to comment on whether a system is worthwhile or not. On this basis, I can comment on Windows, various Linuxes (SLES, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, Arch), OS X and VMS (yes, really - on VAX and Alpha, although the VAXes will be retired next year) - because those are the OSes I use on a daily basis. If you find me pontificating about anything else, please remind me to STFU and I'll eat my words.

Party like it's 1999: CDE Unix desktop REBORN

Ugh! Horrible

I used CDE on Solaris and on VMS many years ago, and I'd kind of hoped that many years ago would be where it stayed. I concede that some talented developer might pick it up and turn it from an ugly piece of crap into a beautiful swan of a user interface - it's possible. But why? There are beautiful UIs in existence already, and then there are halfway decent UIs that wouldn't take too much effort to beautify further. CDE isn't worth the effort.

The only thing that CDE has going for it over Windows is that it's sitting on a Posix compliant OS (usually - not always, admittedly). It has nothing to commend it over Gnome, KDE, Unity, Mac OS X…

Ten freeware gems for new Macs

Dont be so down on GateKeeper

GateKeeper is awesome. It's not too restrictive - it doesn't get in my way at all, but it'll be a huge help in ensuring that my mother doesn't fill her Mac up with crapware. And we should all be thanking Apple (and any software company for that matter) for any technologies which make malware harder to spread, whilst not restricting the end user.

Seize your moment, Microsoft: iPad is RUBBISH for enterprise

News to me

I've been using Apple kit in the enterprise for ten years now, starting with a G4 tower and now using a MacBook Air and an iPad. The Air is used to write Windows and Linux software (I like to keep my hand in), and manage my teams etc. the iPad is unbeatable for presentations, notes and convenient working on the train.

Of course, if we're talking SQL databases and the like then the iPad is unsuitable. For server tasks I recommend HP servers with Linux. Experience tells me that Windows is the weakest link, I'm afraid, and it really has nothing to commend it. It's expensive, inelegant and slow.

Jolly rogered

Dick recognition wouldn't work

If you were to use dick recognition software then the only people who'd be able to browse for porn would be people who vote Tory and readers of the Daily Express and Daily Mail. Oh, and people called Richard.

The irony, of course, is that these people not only don't view porn (or, at least, they vehemently deny viewing porn), but they only 'make love' through a carefully cut hole in a sheet. Except people called Richard of course - they're usually quite well adjusted and normal.

Comet 'sold 94,000 pirate Windows CDs', claims Microsoft

Not guaranteed

It's theoretically possible, although admittedly bloody difficult, to create a malware infested disk image with the same checksum as the uninfested image. I don't know if anyone has been clever enough to pull off the stunt though.

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but the only use I can see for the checksum is to show me that something has definitely gone wrong - not to guarantee that it's gone right.

No Recovery Media?

If your computer comes with no recovery media, and especially if the recovery media is an extra cost option, then you bought the wrong computer. Apple tried this stunt in the past - you had to provide your own floppy disks and write your own recovery set. It was a crap idea then, not helped by the fact that (in Apple's case) Mac OS 7.5.x was less pleasant than treading in dog shit. With bare feet.

It's not as if it's all that difficult to get a computer with free recovery media either - Recovery media that's unencumbered with license number or activation rubbish. The answer, people, is Linux. Or Mac OS X - take your pick. Macs come with recovery media. Linux makes it even easier by providing any number of flavours, gratis, from any number of providers.

Your 2012 resolution should be to place Windows where it belongs. In the bin.

ID10T Error

How are Microsoft acting like Apple? If they were acting like Apple they would:

* Provide recovery media

* Sell upgrades to the OS at a reasonable price…

* …in one version, rather than a crippled 'home' version and a bloody expensive 'ultimate' version

* Give a complete IDE away for free, rather than a crippled IDE for free

* Have no license number to enter on install

* Have no activation either

* Provide a complete, posix environment…

* …that is a joy to use.

* Make the greater part of the OS source code available for download, open source.

So no. In all fairness, Microsoft are acting like Microsoft. You may not like what Apple provides - but if you intended to be fair you'd have to conclude that the only company that acts like Apple is Apple.

New pics of giant black sphere hurtling toward Earth

Run aground

Size of an aircraft carrier? Let's just hope that Andy Coles isn't captain!

Peat bogs will not cause runaway global warming

Lewis Page is a Troll

Lewis Page is Reg's equivalent of Clarkson or The Daily Mail. Despite unanimous (well, unanimous from informed climate scientists anyway) evidence to the contrary, he still craps on about how climate change really isn't all that bad, probably not man made and definitely nothing to worry about.

Please can we stop feeding it now?

Pete Townshend condemns Apple as 'digital vampire'

Rampant self publicist talks bollocks

Nobody care about Pete Townshend any more. I doubt that most of da yoof even know who he is. He's been an irrelevance since the sixties. So, had he not invoked the spectre of Apple, this speech would have been ignored. Let's not give him the oxygen he's seeking. He's just trolling.

The real reason Google bought Motorola

Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the geeks…

Non esse malum

Ten... budget Android tablets

I just don't get it

Why would anybody buy cheap crap just to have something new? Come on! You can get a second hand, good quality tablet (either Android or iOS, take your pick) - with a capacitive glass screen and a decent amount of storage - for about the same price as one of these nasty plastic toys. Less probably, now that the looters are running scared and trying to offload their ill gotten gains!

Powerline networking pops up in Parliament

So what's the point?

Which begs the question, 'what the hell are ofcom for?'

Are they merely a drain on taxpayers money?

Japanese earthquake sparks nuclear emergency

Wow - Strong Nuclear Lobby

Wow, I had no idea that the Nuclear Lobby was so strong on el Reg. So let me explain.

There is no dispute that coal is a dirty fuel and also that coal generates radioactive byproducts too - radioactive byproducts which are largely vented into the atmosphere. But here's the thing - you can't actually make a bomb, dirty or 'clean' from coal ash. What's more, if you wanted to dispose of the ash you could just stuff it back down the mine or quarry that it came from - we have enough abandoned workings after all. We just don't have the political willpower to do so. Ash is largely safe - yes, I know about the heavy metals and other pollutants in the ash - but generations of Welsh communities have demonstrated that it's quite possible to live your life and raise your family in the shadow of the ash pile. Perhaps not nice and yes, fatal if it slips onto your head, but ultimately fairly safe. Besides, after years of plant growth (yes, plants can grow on an ash pile - some even like it), the ash pile stabilises - and many of the nastier waste products get locked up.

Good luck doing that with current, and even next generation, Nuclear reactors. I'd rather live in Aberfan than Pripyat. Even the most vocal adherent of Nuclear has to admit that ash is easier to deal with than nuclear waste.

I don't actually have a problem with building Nuclear - provided we know what we'll do with the waste. And we don't. We keep lobbing ideas around, none of which work so far, and the piles of toxic and radioactive waste continue to build. And the two Nuclear solutions which seem to be cleanest (Hybrid reactors - which would reduce the overall amount of high level waste - theoretically, they could 'burn' waste from other reactors, and burn old nuclear warheads, and Fusion) are either too expensive or too impossible with current technology or lack the political will to implement. So yes. Fuck new Nuclear until we do the job cleanly and properly.

But (whinge, whine, moan) we won't have enough power if we don't have nuclear! Boo Hoo. Turn your computer off at night. Buy less gadgets. Get rid of your energy hungry plasma TV. Recycle. Reuse. Use public transport. Problem solved. Sure, you'll have less toys - but you'll also have a cleaner world. You'll thank me for it one day.

Not actually Anti-Nuclear...

...Just anti current Nuclear. If we have a plan for what we do with the waste I have no problem with it at all (see my later post). My current objection is that we have no idea what to do with the waste we make.

Safe?

Okay, so which numbnuts is going to be first to justify nuclear power, and explain exactly why this expensive and dirty dinosaur deserves political backing for a new generation of reactors?

What a crock.

Apple MacBook Air 13in late 2010

In fairness...

2-3 seconds would be waking up from hibernate - deep, deep, deep sleep. Waking up from normal sleep is quicker than blinking. At any rate, it's quicker (by far) than opening the lid of the laptop.

Mine (a fully maxed 13") is on order (after extensive testing of a demo unit). I was deeply impressed - so much so that I decided not to buy a 'Pro after all. Mine will mostly be used for coding (Mac and Windows), Office, 'Net and Email, and (almost certainly) Civilization V.

Woot!

Depends what website I'm looking at.

Paris - isn't it obvious?

Ms. Gates: 'Bill does not use a Mac'

Lesson 1 in encouraging rebellion…

…tell your kids they can't have something.

Seriously. If you tell a kid (actually, this works with adults too) that they can't have something, they'll only want it more. And if the thing that is denied to them is cool and sexy, and the sanctioned alternative is slight naff rubbish that can't handle leap years - well, you're just undermining your own authority.