Posts by Anonymous Dutch Coward

Oracle ponies up $2.1bn for Acme Packet to bully its way into unified comms

Asterisk?

Well, just as there's always PostgreSQL vis-a-vis MySQL, there's always Freeswitch when talking about Asterisk ;)

Agreed with your post though - interesting to see the Oracle-Cisco wars...

Microsoft Dell deal would restore PC makers' confidence

A billion here, a billion there

Must be too long since I read my economics textbooks or these sentences are incorrect:

"Microsoft, along with VC Silver Lake Partners, is reported to have lined up $15bn from UK and US banks to finance a deal, making them minority investors in a private Dell. Reports value an estimated $3bn Microsoft contribution as a 10 per cent stake."

Huh?

- MS+Silver Lake together have gotten $15bn from banks to invest in Dell

- MS invests $3bn

=> Silver Lake then invests $15bn-$3bn=$12bn?

Or are the banks not loaning money to MS and/or Silver Lake but investing directly in Dell?

Axed staffers hijack HMV Twitter account: 'We're tweeting LIVE from HR'

On mass?

Religious, are you?

I watched Excel meet 1-2-3, and beat it fair and square

Excel < 1-2-3? Features!!?!

What features would that be and would you be willing to bribe the LibreOffice people to put them in?

Java open-source frameworks 'pose risk' to biz - report

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Right. So I should just throwing in .Net code in a Java project and magically watch the quality increase?

Did those code gazers bother to do any analysis on *why* these differences occur or is our Reg hack in question too lazy to quote them?

Help us out here: What's the POINT of Microsoft Office 2013?

Re: PDFs

*cough* even Libre/OpenOffice!

Who ate all the Pis?

Now look what you've done!

I want a Pi, too... even when by now everybody who's anybody probably has one! Sniff.

Verity, once again: great writing!

PS: I like nano. Yes, I'm a wimp.

My top tip for Microsoft: Stop charging for Windows Phone 8

Business doublespeak, statistics, and marketing figures...

What does "showing mobile leadership" even mean? Blegh, business speak again.

Once again it's the Asay Satay Sauce of various figures dredged out of multiple "analyses" mashed up to support what the author is saying. But it generates ad revenue, I suppose, and after a previous good article, I'm not surprised to see the author back to his normal self.

Cameron's speech puts UK adoption of EU data directive in doubt

Re: ...so long, farewell: hosting & Data Protection

Leaving the EU and not joining the European Free Trade Association (or the European Economic Area or negotiating free trade agreements etc) are 2 different things. Ask Switzerland or Norway.

Apart from that, WTO regulations already prohibit import tariffs etc.

As for data protection: if the US can get their dodgy Safe Harbor provisions through the EU, perhaps a non EU UK will be able to prove that their data protection is good enough to meet EU standards (then again, maybe not).

Unfortunately, every politician that thinks our countries should stay in the EU (and/or the EU should move to fiscal/political union regardless of the voters' wishes) trot out the sham argument that leaving the EU means cutting trade etc.

Happens here in Holland, too.

"Amberhawk Training" things politician x years down the line will do y

Based on a speech based on "ifs" while apparently the same politician already broke a cast iron promise to... never mind. Yawn.

(BTW, kudos for dragging something IT-y kicking and screaming into this article.)

Oh, those crazy Frenchies: Facebook faces family photo tax in France

Re: Not As Stupid As Anglosaxons

I'd say French are stupid in their unique French way that you stupid (and uncultured, culinarily barbaric) Anglosaxons just don't appreciate... take it from a stupid Dutchman :)

Good point.

Stuff like that is exactly what keeps bureaucrats, tax law specialists, economists, diplomats etc in cushy jobs, committees figuring it out, trying to set up treaties etc.

Beer because I need it only thinking about this.

Tech titans sell yesterday's idea wrapped in tomorrow's dream

"Oracle and SAP aren't delivering true cloud technology"

ACx is correct: "cloud" is recycling old, well known, even *yikes* succesful concepts (horses for courses though).

The problem is every marketing department has its own definition.

Very interesting to hear why whatever Oracle and SAP are delivering isn't "true cloud technology"...

App poked through Twitter hole, probed my privates - security bod

Oauth v1!

At least Twitter use Oauth v1 instead of the ungodly mess of vendor interest so thinly disguised as a "standard" that the original Oauth designer (IIRC) quit in disgust..

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

Re: useful

Yep, Suddenly you See Sumatra Sucks less ;)

(Ok, have to work on my alliteration skills. Unfortunately, that task will just have to join the queue ;) )

More seriously: yep, love Sumatra. Can't understand why it's not more popular among the Reg crowd.

Google's JavaScript assassin: Web languages are harder than VMs

"the VM doesn’t have to take time running floating point connections to run new objects"

Huh? I'm not that familiar with language internals let alone Javascript but... floating point connections to objects?

Don't you mean (integer) pointers to new objects?

I'd appreciate clarifications...

The forkers saving open source from a corporate bear hug

Congrats for the article

Thanks, Mr Asay, that article made sense - and erroneously ignoring the non-corporate/non "core" developer/bug reporter, documenter etc in open source is probably a lot of companies do...

What is 2013 coming to (alternatively: what have I been drinking)? Asay articles I like and I sometimes even understand amanfrommars!

Copyright trolls, biz scum, freetards - it's NOT black and white

Re: One thought

Shame that corporations can buy other corporations... and do.

Agreed with the spirit of what you're saying though; limiting the expiration of copyright/patents to something sensible instead of having Mickey Mouse extensions all the time makes a lot of sense, I'd say.

Re: Reality 101

Wonder if you had the same attitude if your name was Turing, you lived over half a century ago and was attracted to other men...

Stallman: Ubuntu spyware makes it JUST AS BAD as Windows

Disunity?

Better disunity than Unity, I'd think!

Ok, I'll get it now.

Dutch army digs in on spare spectrum rest of Europe could use

Underwater

Quite true that. Fancy any tanks BTW? Our army apparently is trying to flog them all...

Scientists build largest ever computerized brain

Re: Politicians vs Electorate

"They are mirror of the electorate" Or a subselection.

Depends on whether you're an optimist or pessimist.

Dead Steve Jobs was dead wrong on Flash, bellows ColdFusion man

Object-C? Where can I get it?

Where can I learn more about this Object-C you talk of that apparently runs on Apple devices? Or do you mean Objective C?

China's cut-price drones attract Asian and African buyers

Exclusive triumvirate?

Ehm yes. Exclusive in the sense that there can't be 4 men/(nations?) in a triumvirate.

Exclusive in the sense that no other nation could produce armed drones? Surely if they can produce armed planes, armed drones must be quite similar and fairly easy to make.

Not saying that a first try would produce stellar results, but "exclusive triumvirate"??? Mmm.

Explanations on the ease with which armed drones could be assembled by gifted DIY nations gladly accepted.

Word wonks insist GIFs are really JIFs

γίγας=gigas?

Are you sure you're not confusing the pronunciation of the gamma with that of the chi?

But then again, that pronunciation may be... regional ;)

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

Same here to your east..

Apple staff call Taiwanese filmmaker an 'idiot'

Re: Did he forget the magic word?

Exactly! He should have gone to New Zealand to confront Apple.

EU proposed emergency alert system won't work on iPhone

Re: Can't pay for Cell Broadcast

Attaboy, glad our ARRAY of old geezers remembers the good old times ;)

(Nope did not look it up. Sigh. I'm old.)

Medical scan record that the NHS says will cost £2k to retrieve: Detail

Re: Restrictions

And there may well be boilerplate NDA etc contracts for the NHS so IT suppliers can service gear, restore hard drives etc.

Your point is?

Re: Another reason (if one were needed)

Wouidn't DICOM store the image part in something like TIFF though (or perhaps JPEG)... I vaguely remember DICOM offers a couple of alternative formats...

Microsoft takes on GitHub with cloudy Team Foundation Service

@asdf: handing over source code

Seems you're contradicting yourself: you correctly emphasize the importance of source code security (and not handing it over to third parties on a whim) but only complain about the build service?

What do you think TFS does? If it doesn't get your source code, that white-looking summary screen will be even whiter!

Where are all the open-source mobile projects?

@Ramazan Re: Is there something inherent in mobile that is a poor fit for open source

There's a difference between programming applications on/for a phone and reimplementing your own codec.

Similarly, not everybody programming for Linux is writing his own graphics driver.

Or am I missing something blindingly obvious here?

Re: OpenSource - more than copycat :-|

Oh yes, let's start talking about the various subdefininitions of free and/or open, libre, gratis etc....

I think most people know that an open source license does not necessarily 0 bucks for the product. And the people that don't... are perhaps beyond saving.

Rather pay attention to trimming that beard...

Nationwide to perform IT equivalent of 'replacing jet engine mid-flight'

Re: Analysis

"It can be made to work". My gut tells me that could well be true. Ouch. Just ouch.

Re: Err...

True about the human error.

Could also have been the decision to buy CA (scheduling) software in the first place, depending on your religious views about CA ;)

Forgetting Microsoft: How Steve Ballmer's Surface could win

Yep, seeing as what price they charge for it ;)

WHITE WHALE spent 4 years trying to tell us something, then stopped

Re: Gets my vote

Even though Jacques's been deceased for a while, I'm afraid you're right...

Gartner has its head in the clouds - and its numbers are WRONG

Nicely done, Mr Asay

Completely agreed with your article - that may have been a first ;) Keep them coming!

Thanks a lot,

The Windmill & Tulips Coward

Is Oracle squeezing the MySQL lemon too hard?

Re: "community" "open source".. just smoke screens...

While I admire your cynical stance, some people actually do work for free, because they like it, get recognition, scratch an itch etc.

Up to you if you want to see these people as useful idiots with shadowy puppet masters behind them... why not. I have these moments, too.

Dutch unleash intelligent robot bins: No ID, no rubbish

Saved money?

The interested parties would say that, wouldn't they? I mean, the company who provided this innovative new product would hardly put a bad spin on this?

The question is if all relevant costs have been taken into account.

Charging citizens through the nose for dumping their rubbish with this scheme may lead to a net "profit" for the city council.

Non-recyclable rubbish tipped into the recycling containers will lead to higher processing costs.

Etc.

CIOs' most likely job move is a sideways shift

CEO not IT savvy

Exactly, Dazed: the reason CEOs don't see CIOs as strategic advisers may be that CEOs have insufficient knowledge of what IT does.

Because IT is essential to a lot of businesses, perhaps it's fare more important to get CEOs to learn more about IT than to get CIOs to learn more about business...

But the CEO can never be wrong, can he....

Windows Phone 8: What Nokia and Microsoft must do

Looking at the weather: @ShelLuser

Ah, the joys of modern technology - see what kind of weather it is around you by looking at a screen instead of outside ;)

Windows Phone 8: Microsoft quite literally can't lose

Microsoft may need WinPhone to succeed

Exactly. The fact that their other divisions may still be making a sizeable profit won't necessarily be true in future.

Why Java would still stink even if it weren't security swiss cheese

Alternative? Re: Problem is,

Lazarus. Write once, compile anywhere ;) Just released version 1.0, too.

Runs on Windows, Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, perhaps even Solaris if you can persuade it to. I think it can create apps for Android, could be IOS as well.

Uses Qt, GTK2, Carbon or Win32... and switching between them could be just a recompile.

In my hobbyist eyes, reading/writing Object Pascal (more or less the dialect Delphi uses - there's even a Delphi compatibility mode in Lazarus) is much easier than C++.

Open source author pulls code after GPL abuse

Quote of the week @Pascal Monett

That, sir, is one worthy for the records! Kudos.

Indian gov bans bulk texts as workers flee Bangalore

@123etc Re: 'strong bench strenth'???

Yep. Credit where credit is due, our Indian brethren do sometimes have a very charming and creative way to present nasty facts. "Bench strength": sounds like a good thing ;)

Disney sitcom says open source is insecure

@ Greg: Warp core

But perhaps dumping warp cores would brighten up your existence. Don't knock it till you've done^H^H^H^H tried it ;)

HP to take one more stab at consumer tablets

@Christian Berge @Toothpick & Linux

"I know you probably are a Windows/Mac person, so you don't have the contrast. In my experience Windows/Mac people spend huge portions of their time on problems with their setup."

"Another problem is that Windows/Mac software usually uses binary or very complex text formats, while on Unix people try to keep everything as simple as possible."

Newsflash: Mac OSX has been a form of Unix from the start.

Assange granted asylum by Ecuador after US refused to rule out charges

Re: Well Done Equador

What about the Ecuadorians' offer for Swedish investigators to come over to London and talk to Assange (TM)?

Turned down.

Apparently the Swedes aren't even interested in getting their charge sheet right...

Regardless of what he may have done, this reeks to me.