Posts by Anonymous IV

Best Buy takes axe to touchy Windows 8 PCs - lops $100 off price

@AC 14:11

Just install StartIsBack http://startisback.com/ on the WIndows 8 PC, and get all the advantages of Windows 8 with the GUI you know and love from Windows 7. (A swingeing $3 for 2 PCs.)

BBC Vision and Audio tossed on bonfire, replaced by 'TV', 'Radio'

Re: Helen Boaden

Ah, BBC job titles! It was alleged that in the Sixties (or thereabouts) an engineer at the BBC had managed to get himself awarded the title of Engineering Information and Electrical Installation Officer, so that he could, quite validly, answer the telephone with "EIEIO?", but checking a few years ago with someone who worked at the BBC found no trace of this.

An episode of South Parks apparently recycled the same idea with "Email, Internet, Electronic Information Officer."

Microsoft 'touches 16k shop workers' to flog Windows 8 hard

The "ambitious" user interface design...

One presumes that in the UK, following Yes, Minister, the word that would be used instead of "ambitious" would be "courageous".

Foxit outfoxes fiendish flaw to fix foxed-up Firefox PDF plugin

Re: useful

Possibly Reg-ers are appalled by the default acid yellow background of Sumatra PDF?

Fix it by adding bg-color to the shortcut, as in

"C:\Program Files\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" -bg-color 0xF2F8FD

(a delicate pale blue in RGB).

Facebook testing $100 fee to mail Mark Zuckerberg

Re: Cheap at..

How ironic if the maximum message length to Lord Zuckerberg was set at 140 characters...

30 years ago, at flip of a switch, the internet as we know it WAS BORN

No mention of token ring?

I was always told (probably by IBM customer representatives) that Token Ring was a much more efficient protocol than Ethernet. What a pity that the implementation was so awful, with clunky Media Access Units and thick coaxial cabling. Ended up rather like BetaMax vs. VHS...

Re: The Internet always existed...

"It just had zero nodes."

Hence the old joke starting: "My internet's got no nodes..."

It must be the end of the world... El Reg man thanks commentards

Error: no address supplied...

... to receive the mountains of goodies that grateful firms will doubtless shower upon the author, following favourable mention in El Reg...

Hacking bazaar ExploitHub gets hacked, database leaked

@Adze

And to that I say "Ita, esto - quidcumque".

(Perhaps "Yeah, right - whatever...")

Another Apple maps desert death trap down under

Re: What's with the Apple fixation?

"The laddie doth protest too much, methinks..."

(accurately misquoted from Hamlet, Act III, scene II)

Mother of All Whistlers: Virgin Media superhub. Listen to recordings

Re: Maplins

So you never watched Hi-de-Hi when you were young?

Review: Samsung Series 9 super slim notebook

Re: 1600x900

Why not 1920x1200? Probably because the laptop screen would be enormous at current pixel densities - this is the resolution of the excellent 24" Dell U2412M monitor.

Samsung printers have secret admin account

It doesn't follow...

“The vendor has stated that models released after October 31, 2012 are not affected by this vulnerability.” Which will be welcome relief for those who acquired a printer in the last month."

The welcome relief will happen only when all the models released before 31 Oct 2012 have been sold - which could perhaps be anything up to a year later?

Scoop! The inside story of the news website that saved the BBC

Fascinating article

Bienly fait, Andrew!

Troubled OCZ now has feds up ass with microscope

Re: I am no reader of this article (just passing through...)

This should not even be nominated for Headline of the Article - it is poor for several reasons:

* "feds" should have been "Feds", since there is presumably no connection with "fed up" nor with " 'fess up"

* "ass" is American usage, our AngloSaxon word is better and less easily confused with equus asinus

* a microscope would be an entirely inappropriate instrument for anal insertion - a colonoscope, sigmoidoscope or even endoscope would be of more use (trust me)

I'm happy with "Troubled OCZ", though.

Assault on battery

Re: Back in reality

You never thought of carrying your own set of batteries for this eventuality?

Asus VivoBook S200 11.6in touchscreen notebook review

Re: USB ports?

And can anyone explain why it doesn't have gigabit ethernet? How much extra would that cost?

How spreadsheets (nearly) conquered and killed the financial industry

Re: Fast, Cheap, Right

I understand the choice has been reduced to one, because of the recession...

Retailers report slow Windows 8 sales, low demand

Re: The problem is this....

"the new slightly confused interface" [TIFKAM, or Metro]

One of the glories of the English people has been their skill at understatement.

Ten Linux apps you must install

"RAR extraction, an archiving option popular in the Windows world"

Really? I think I saw a couple of RAR files in the late 80s or early 90s in MS/PC-DOS, but not since then. ZIP files, however, are endemic.

Word wonks insist GIFs are really JIFs

Re: Was the vulture logo created by a jiffics artist on jiff paper?

And the Noble British pronounced DOS as Doss, whereas Americans said D O S...

Telefonica stirs up clouds, offers steaming mug of Instant Servers

Impressive

99.996% uptime means no more than 3.456 seconds per day downtime. Believable?

Are you an IT pro? It's no longer safe to bet your career on Microsoft

Re: Please...

Remember that the article was written by the IT equivalent of an estate agent.

Firm-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's tax dodge profit shift? Totally legit

Re: Nope

"No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores."

James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde, Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services and Ritchie v. IRC (1929) 14 TC 754.

Surely the same applies to companies, however immoral it might seem?

Re: So...

"If living were a thing that money could buy

Then the rich would live, and the poor would die."

All My Trials, sung by (say) Joni Mitchell

Avira 'fesses up: Our software isn't compatible with Windows 8

Impressive!

I suppose Windows 8 RTM came as a complete surprise to them, and they hadn't noticed the Developer Preview, the Customer Preview and the Release Preview.

Virgin close to releasing long-delayed TiVo app

Par for the course

Virgin Media has previous for (very) late delivery. Just the three other items I can think of:

1) announcement of "speed doubling" with a timetable for various areas of the country, then delivery times for many places put back perhaps 6 months

2) all Blue Yonder and NTL email addresses to be transferred to VirginMedia.com or similar - still waiting for this after at least two years!

3) SuperHub firmware is dire, to the extent that they don't dare roll it out to business customers, who are still staggering on at 10 Mbps and 20 Mbps maximum

Welsh council's unused mountain of 2,400 laptops

Obvious disposal mechanism

Leave them, one at a time, on trains, or in the back of taxis.

(Don't you just hate it when someone gives you 2400 laptops?)

Facebook won't pull unmarked police plates page

Re: complete nonsense

All fascinating stuff, no doubt, but hardly vital information for El Reg's overwhelmingly British readership?

The hoarder's dilemma, or 'Why can't I throw anything away?'

Re: It's the suppliers fault

"The other day I needed a radiator bleed key and they come in packs of 2!!! Why the hell would I need 2 these!!!"

One downstairs, one upstairs? You would be amazed how many people have an upstairs and a downstairs vacuum cleaner, to save carting their sole one up and down the stairs. Usually they are called Henry or Hetty.

Ay caramba, Ubuntu 12.10: Get it right on Amazon!

The reason for Ubuntu's fall from grace?

I wonder just how much of the current dissatisfaction with Ubuntu can be laid at the door of Mark Shuttleworth's increasingly stupid release names?

Techie to Managing Director: "I think we ought to investigate installing Linux on our desktops."

ManDir to Techie: "You mean the thing known as Rabid Rhino or Sizzling Sausages? You must be joking - I'd be laughed off the golf club committee!"

Remember the old tagline: "Can Compaq be any good at making PCs when then can't even spell their name correctly?"

Virgin Media's blighted SuperHub NOW comes with extra squeal (oink)

"...customers may be able to hear a subtle noise whilst in use"

Love the use of the word "subtle", rather than "infuriating" or "suicide-inducing".

Windows 8 pricing details announced as preorders begin

What do people get so worked up about operating systems? Surely they are just a necessary background to enable you to run Real Work.

And, just like London buses, "There will be another along in a minute."

UK.gov tries to close site giving home addresses of badger cull figures

Re: because, experts claim, the animals spread tuberculosis among cattle.

And probably also in front of "cattle."

Wanted! 4m-plus PC purchases to halt industry decline

Re: Damp SQUID????

So you'd prefer a *dry* squid?

'Small' upheaval at McAfee, not many fired

Re: I assume this has to do with...

"Revolutionise how we think of security?"

It will make people think of AMD.

Natwest's Get Cash app pulled, but NOTHING to do with frauds

Unfounded allegations?

"According to a Natwest spokesperson it was likely that the fraud victim interviewed on the BBC's Moneybox programme had given out his details to phishers which is how his account got hijacked."

The fraud victim denied this, and Nat West put forward no evidence to support their allegation. I have no evidence that Nat West's security precautions are unbreakable...

Don't delete that email! Why you must keep biz docs for 6 YEARS

Social media messages?

How are Facebook information and Tweets to be saved for six years, then? It's not just email and paper documents any more...

Boffins: Our memory film is like your girlfriend - transparent and cheap

Re: I already have transparent memory

Possibly you are thinking of that well-known 1st April patent, for Write-Only Memory (WOM)?

Skydiver Baumgartner's 120,000ft spacesuit leap delayed by bad wind

Re: helium

Perhaps if the price of helium for frivolous use was multiplied by 10 then what remains could be sold at normal price for MRI scanners, and the like.

Man charged over alleged April Jones Facebook trolling

Re: Freedom of speach means the good, the bad and the evil.

Indeed, hence the maxim "hard cases make bad law." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law

LASER STRIKES against US planes on the rise

Re: One major question I have..

"Please put me over your metaphorical knee and spank some not so metaphorical sense into me."

Perhaps you should consider whether prolixity reduces coherence.

(Or are you in "Fifty Shades of Grey" mode?!)

Re: How about the Reg doing the experiment under safe controlled cirumstances

Looks like a case for MythBusters?

Viewsonic buries fondleslabs for punters, flogs biz tabs instead

Verbal garbage

"Viewsonic said it has "made the strategic decision to focus our future tablet initiatives in [...] niche verticals"."

So it's not just ME who is suffering from niche verticals?

Virgin ramps 4G to a whopping 90Mbps - and switches it off

Re: No matter how much bandwidth you generate

Just the two spelling mistakes: "apostrophise" and "separate".

4/10 See me...

New benefits website at risk of hackers, no Plan B - ministers

It's George Santayana time again!

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Virgin Media STILL working on fix for SuperHub corrupt downloads glitch

"...the problem was a firmware one and nothing to do with the SuperHub's hardware."

Well, that's a relief, then. How does the customer separate the firmware from the hardware, then?

In modem mode, for me, the SuperHub hangs about once a month and needs a power-cycle to fix. Identifying that the SuperHub is dead (and that lack of internet connectivity does not involve some other arbitrary problem) requires me to run a monitoring program after each logon.

As far as I can remember, my previous Scientific-Atlanta WebStar cable modem was rock solid. Pity it wouldn't run at 30 Mbps...

(Memo to Virgin Media: don't give extravagantly-inaccurate names to your hardware.)

iPhone 5 has 'laser keyboard, holographic images'

Re: Oxymoron ?

That doesn't *define* an oxymoron; it is just a *good example* of one!

</pedant>

iPhone 5 adaptors goldrush begins

"Keep feeding your £20 notes into the slot"...

... or was there another reason why that graphic was included?

Who's afraid of Windows 8? Trio leads Microsoft migration pack

Re: It's the same for every Windows version.

Golly - surely Microsoft will immediately take note of your wise words about patterns, and cause Windows 10 to be given version number 8.3, or anything which isn't n.0. That is bound to guarantee its success!

(This producing operating systems lark is dead easy, isn't it...!)