Posts by TimChuma

Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap

Use a combination of tools

Anti-malware and anti-virus tools work best together.

I have used Malwarebytes to rid someone else's computer of ransomware and it still blocks sites better than Chrome.

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens offers a new hope for the franchise

Also little kids yelling out spoilers on exiting the cinema

Yes, exactly like Homer Simpson spoiling the ending to Empire.

Episodes I - III were mainly filmed in Australia. They went back to England to film the new one, hence all the uncredited cameos in the movie.

Carders fleece $4.2 million from Victoria's MyKi transport agency

It is easy to put money on cards, hard to get them off

There is still no way to do bank to bank transfers of card balances and they still pay in cheque.

I have a concession that is expiring and there was no way to pay up to the exact day as for the "pass" you have to either do 28 days or 4 weeks minimum. You can have a "pass" amount of days but still have the balance in negative and not be able to use it.

There is a cascading issue with "paywave" transactions at 7/11 you don't need a pin for transactions under $100 which is where the cards would be being recharged.

Oz goes mad with the ban-hammer

Some are no longer banned

In the time it took me to get an answer back from the OFLC which was "we can't say why this game was banned" some of the games are no longer on the Refused Classification list

Gone from Google Play Store also

That was quick! Must be geoblocked. I am sure they will block other "banned content" in time

Maybe a publicity stunt for some of them?

"Banned in Queensland" used to be used for cheap publicity in Australia (they banned films but the political system was crooked.) Some of the smaller companies would not have the resources to change their apps for such a small market.

It is a "self reporting" system so their might be some exaggeration.

That EVIL TEXT that will CRASH your iPhone: We pop the hood

Didn't there also used to be one for modems?

Was a character string some not nice people would post to newsgroups that would hang up a certain brand of modem.

Also Web-TV had the infamous "wtv-client:hangup-phone" command.

Telstra also unloaded a whole heap of end of line ADSL modems that would disconnect on Myspace and Facebook for some reason.

Microsoft HoloLens or Hollow Lens? El Reg stares down cyber-specs' code

PORN!

Lovely porn! Wonderful porn!

Far Cry 4 review: It's a far cry from Far Cry 3

I bought the pack with four games in it

Only Far Cry 2 & 3 were on disc. The first game and Blood Dragon were download only. Still have not played 2.

Snapper's decisions: Whatever happened to real photography?

Is a big jump between DSLRs

The amount of money you have to spend to get a significantly better DSLR as compared to an entry level one is large enough that I have not bothered. They do not keep their value and having the right lenses for what you are photographing is more important. I can't afford them either. I had to use a 50mm f1.8 for almost two years manually so it taught me a lot about getting the right shot.

Australia's media regulator to oversee new data retention regime

But what are they going to use it for?

I took 2 years to work out the metadata and IA for a single state government website. This will end badly. Nobody knows what metadata is for.

NSW Govt spends half a million dollars on XP support

Custom apps?

More than likely custom software that requires XP to run. Lotus Notes is still being used in some state government departments in Australia even though they can't get anyone to support it.

Big Content Australia just blew a big hole in its credibility

"Just because" is not an excuse to gouge

Even the Warner Archive DVD-R movies are being sold in shops for $40 each. They are "play only" DVDs. The Looney Tunes box set was not available in Australia, they only way to get it was to pay $20 for each DVD without extras.

It is easy enough to import multi-region discs so "different classification restrictions" and PAL do not cut it for an excuse of putting less on a DVD or Blu Ray these days.

AVG stung as search revenue from freebie scanners dries up

So that's why

It was reporting AdBlock Plus libraries as a virus positive, it is cutting into their revenue stream.

My computer has been getting very slow lately with Chrome especially.

Appeal to again seek code for Australia's secret election software

Re: Pozible a bit dodgy?

Pozible should be fine, I have used it dozens of times.

It took me three attempts and an hour to complete the last Senate ballot paper. Is very complicated.

BOFH: You can take our lives, but you'll never take OUR MACROS

No love for MS Access?

I still remember the "rename Hatten.ttf" trick to get 97 and 2000 running on the same computer.

I did read two thick books on Access at the time (the second one was mostly office automation), but moved on to SQL Server. Pity I never kept up with .NET or I would be a lot richer today.

Myspace: Where are you going? We still have all your HUMILIATING PICS

Even on my own site I get this

While I can take the photos down off my own site, archive.org still has an archive of the previous version.

Attempting to just change the text on the page actually makes it rank higher in Google as it counts it as a "new" page, had to use their page removal tools.

I recently had to remove an entire archive due to not wanting to get complaints for an old site I do not update any more. The original event warned people they would be photographed and the photos would be put online.

How Microsoft can keep Win XP alive – and WHY: A real-world example

Hardware needs to be up to standard

Most of the problems I have seen with computers being "too slow" come from supposed experts trying to install updated operating systems on hardware that should have been junked. I have seen computers that took 2 days to run the install that could barely run DOS and they tried to put Windows on them. When I was reconditioning computers for a charity they would take all but 256Mb of memory out for computers running Windows XP as that was "plenty", no it is not.

The revival of survival – the gaming genre that refuses to die

Re: Early DayZ: 1,147,237 views on YouTube

Was my gateway to watching all the ShackTac videos, they make watching gameplay videos on Youtube entertaining.

Guinness gives games geek world record for 10,607 piece collection

No one has offered him work in a museum?

Seriously? The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) has consoles as a part of its permanent collection. They also put together the Game Masters exhibition that is now touring http://www.acmi.net.au/game-masters.aspx It is a full time job just keeping some of those consoles running especially the older arcade and SEGA stuff. Logical pin diagrams for most of the older consoles can be easily found.

Yes, there are emulators but they are not the same as running it on the original hardware. There are very few that actually run it like the game did through the TV. The new LCD and plasma flat screens cannot run some hardware such as light guns that was designed with a CRT in mind.

Yes, the BBC still uses FTP. And yes, a Russian crook hacked the server

Yes? And...?

I still prefer to use FTP to my own server that I pay for the 100Gb space on and not have to rely on a 3rd party to look after my files. When the files are downloaded I can delete them. It is only me with the access.

For seven years I was uploading photo galleries via FTP, it was a lot more straight forward except for when I had to take stuff down.

Teary-eyed snappers recall the golden age of film

Never got into film

I was never that good at using film, the cost was just too much and I quit out of the photography subject I took at uni.

My first major experience with digital photography was back in 1997 working on a Google-streetview type project for a university campus. All the panoramas and links had to be created manually. Was thousands of photos that had to be taken.

I don't really hang out with photographers in forums as they just annoy me and a lot of people are more interested in having a pull over technical specifications than taking photos. Not sure if people like having digital cameras as toys to play with or actually using them.

I spend more time archiving and backing up photos than I do taking them and I go out 100+ times per year to take photos of local gigs in the live music scene.

Your kids' chances of becoming programmers? ZERO

Rose-tinted glasses

Our family never had a computer in the 1980s, I had to go to friends places to use theirs. For some reason it was always kids that lived on farms that had computers due to tax rorts and they were meant to be for "doing the accounts".

Not sure what kids these days would program unless it involved API calls to Facebook and Google for various applications like some kind of weirdo. The number of actual programmers interested in that stuff is very low or they are already working for those companies.

I remember having to write out final assignments by hand even in my final year as I did not have enough time to type them on the computer at school. We only had BBC Micros from 1989 to 1994, with Archimedes in some labs and one PC that kids would sneak playing HHGTTG text adventure on.

Starting a computer degree meant I needed a computer at home and that was at the start of 1995. I had to share it with the whole family. Also I had to spend 4hr per day commuting on buses, through fifteen feet of snow, uphill in both directions. Kids today!

The gist of my computing degree was to prepare graduates for work in large companies using UNIX, COBOL, Relational databases and doing Y2K work. I ended up doing none of these and the job I am doing now did not even exist when I started high school.

FACE IT: attempts to get Oz kids into IT jobs are FAILING

They want what does not exist

All the ads I see are for recruiters who always want a minimum of five years experience in technologies that have not even been out that long. Also they will never tell you they are all advertising for the same role so it is pointless to apply more than once.

Gasp! Twitter displays pictures in main feed as IPO looms

It fills me with terror

There is not the content checking you get with Facebook, I don't want to get fired for scrolling the wrong thing.

"Just don't use Twitter at work" is what some people would say, I already do not use Facebook and just keep Twitter on in the background. "Don't follow that woman who likes to post photos of her G-cups", but where's the fun in that?

It is irritating that there is no way to turn it off either. Expecting users to change their behaviour is no way to run a system, just look at the Myki ticketing system in Melbourne.

Big Content says Pirates of the Caribbean do their worst in Australia

Carribean Gardens? There's a name I have not heard for a long time...

It is a big car boot sale with independant traders selling there own stuff and yes bootlegs and piracy has always been a problem there dating back since it opened almost.

I have spent a couple of hundred dollars in the past couple of months on import DVDs on titles that are not available in Australia. Attempting to buy the same titles from local retailers means you pay at least double for example the Warner Archive DVD-R movies are being sold at $40AUD where you can buy them for $9 online. Other markups are just obscene and are just the stores being greedy.

PAL and the Office of Film and Literature Classification are always used as an excuse to why the Region 4 releases for DVDs never get the same content, it is nonsense. The same with Bluray since Sony owns the format and it is hard to find multi region players.

WHY do phone cams turn me into a clumsy twat with dexterity of an elephant?

I don't even use all the features on my SLR

I take a large amount of photos every year, going out over 100 separate times to do so and still do not use some of the features on my camera. Can't really call it a hobby, more of a second job that that I have to pay for.

I have specialised so much in taking photos of live music performances in darkened rooms that I struggle to take photos outside in the sunlight.

I bought the cheapest SLR I could find and just upgraded the lens to a slightly better one for low light (35mm). A lot of people buy fancy pants cameras just to have a new toy to play with. There is a big price jump up to the next rank of cameras before you get better quality and then you have to really know what you are doing as there are no auto controls at all.

There's a model of Canon SLR that mostly seems to be used by indie film makers now at least where I live. I have used to video feature on my camera a handful of times, yes once even for a model in the boudoir (no, you cannot see it.)

Facebook Frankenphoto morgue will store your cold, dead selfies FOREVER

Why should I make Facebook more money?

I was putting a "preview" gallery of photos on my Facebook page before I did the proper version for my website, but it turns out no one was going to my website to look at the photos and assuming the Facebook version was the final one. I was doing the same work twice for no reason and giving Facebook the page views and advertising revenue for no reason.

I did have to upgrade the system to handle photos on my website though, just doing a plain HTML gallery may have been fast, but was a pain to update whenever I had to take photos down. At least I still have the photo galleries stored locally.

First rigid airship since the Hindenburg cleared for outdoor flight trials

Thunderbirds Are Go!

That looks quite a bit like Thunderbird 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_machines#Thunderbird_2

The movie Thunderbird 6 is centered around an airship also.

'WTF! MORONS!' Yahoo! Groups! redesign! traumatises! users!

SIX TIMES!

I wondered why the B3TA weekly newsletter ended up in my mailbox six times this weekend. They could not get it to send in plain text.

Wikileaks Party scrambles to explain election decisions

The preferences thing happened to several parties

"Not enough time" was the excuse used.

The Wikileaks party has imploded over this issue and people have quit the party.

The senate ballot paper in Victoria is 5 feet long with hundreds of choices, too hard. I think I have voted "below the line" in one election.

Japan's unwanted IT workers dumped in 'forcing-out rooms'

Why is this news?

I did this for several years once, they were trying to get me to leave so they did not have to pay me out. Would not even upgrade the computer and I spent a whole year without internet access while working as the webmaster for the company.

Fanbois smash iPhone 5s much sooner than iPhone 3s ... but WHY?

Re: Hm

I once tried to make my text messages go faster on my old Nokia by throwing it, still worked great.

My current 2730c still works, but the battery is starting to lose its charge quicker. The new upgrade for the Facebook app made it slow.

Don't know why I show people how crap my phone is by putting it in my mouth? It still works. Don't need to get a new phone yet. Also do not want to upgrade plans or change to a new phone.

Microsoft: Still using Office installed on a PC? Gosh, you squares

What's wrong with Office 2000?

The only thing I can't open is docx files, but they fixed that after Office 2007 (I use an online converter).

I can't believe the CD I installed it off still works.

I did use MS Access 97 and 2000 quite a bit back in the day (and worked out the dreaded Hatten.ttf error that stopped you installing both.)

Poke mon!? Poke mon ... Poke mon with the poke and the mon,

Flippin' Equus! Unfeasibly old horse bone DNA triumph

Phar Lap can be sequenced then?

The last word was that the DNA was "too damaged" after less than 100 years to be properly sequenced.

The skin is in a museum in Melbourne, the skeleton is in New Zealand and the heart is in Canberra I believe.

No FTTH under alternative Oz NBN plan, says Oppn. leader

Dig up stupid!

What really is happening is that they are only now finding all the things that actually need to be fixed in the telecommunications network that were not looked at before. It costs thousands of dollars even to drain the pits and look in them.

I enjoyed this summation of the policy of the, lets face it now incoming government at the next election

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-6E5yX1E0U

CSIRO scales up solar cell printing

"Have you heard about the government subsidy for solar panels?"

Arrgh! Stop ringing me! I don't have a roof!

As long as it doesn't become part of a government "scheme" where people how much they can rip it off it should be fine.

TARDIS materialises in Sydney

Also in Newtown

The venue the Vanguard where the Star Wars Burlesque show first ran and also "The Batman Follies of 1929" and "Wizard of Oz Burlesque".

NBN rollout to reach 1.3m new premises by late 2016

When monkeys fly out of my butt!

It will be lucky to be finished by 2030!

US Ambassador plays Game of Thrones with pirates

Different conditions in Australia

Game of Thrones does not screen on free to air in Australia either. Plus you have to pay for a "bundle" to get the channel that it screens on after paying for pay TV. There is only one pay TV provider in Australia and they are milking it for all it is worth.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Re: Not Sonic's first appearance in a Sega game...

Rad Mobile. This game was also featured in the movie Ecino Man.

The Sonic series has some strange fans.

Also there is a hacking community surrounding the original game.

IT salaries: Why you are a clapped-out Ferrari

I could comment more if I had any work recently

My agency won't even call me to see how I am going. I used to get catapulted into roles with a day or less notice and expected to work. It was the same sort of work all the time, but at least I had something to do and would do it like a relentless bulldozer, even finishing ahead of time when it would cost me money a couple of times.

I am still looking for work though and have tried applying for non IT roles, but I never seem to hear back from them.

No love for MS Access? It is a good starting point for learning MS SQL Server and you can use it as a front end for server applications. I do remember going through two thick books on the application (the second one was mainly office automation stuff.) I did even support a site that used MS Access for the web database, but updated it to SQL Server.

Never really got into .NET and these days a lot of roles want iOS and HTML 5 and stuff that hasn't even been around for more than a couple of years. Also whenever I see it, I have to say "Dispatch War Rocket AJAX, to bring back his body!"

The most training I have had in the past couple of years was two days training in a content management system so I could do administration tasks in the back end. It was from the official support company for the CMS though.

I am most concerned about the rate of superannuation going up from 9% to 12% in the next few years, meaning sneaky people will make it sound like you are getting more money when the rate includes super. I try to get an ex. super quote when I am applying for roles.

My rate hasn't really gone up by a large amount in the past few years, will have to start asking for a bit more even in the content roles. I have tried applying for more senior positions but I never seem to get them. One of the team managers on a project decided to just go back to migrating content for some reason and we never found out why.

Australia gets a space strategy

Woomera doesn't get as much action as it used to.

Supposedly is one of the only rocket launching facilities where the launch and recovery were in the same country, was a landing zone on the West Australian coast.

There is a $10,000 departure tax if you leave the country on a rocket.

Australia also has the distinction of selling uranium to another country so it could have bombs exploded on its soil. Also they once sprayed plutonium across the desert by melting it with explosives. Fun times.

Australia's alternative NBN plan: some taxpayer-friendly questions

Too late now

They have created a massive bureaucratic organisation that they have no control over. It has been taken "off budget" according to even Abbott and is a law onto itself.

The final price for the NBN will be closer to $100Billion and it will be at least 10 years later than they are saying.

The same thing has happened with a lot of government programs that mean well, but as soon as someone finds a loophole they just start pumping it for as much money as possible.

Public cloud will grow when experienced IT folks DIE

Just wait a few years

Until all the "cloud" storage companies that over GBs of free storage go out of business for not having a sustainable business model.

I have too many GB of files to be able to store them on a cloud storage service.

I updated the photo gallery software on my website to better manage the photos I have archived there a couple of years ago and now have 16,082 photos on it and that is only the best 10%. I have taken 390,034 photos in the past 10 years, not all of them are worth putting online.

Facebook to filter angry comments in site tweak

Or just get your missus to monitor your comments

Like a certain right-wing newspaper columnist in Australia that ended up losing the defamation case and had a massive tanty about it.

Oi, Microsoft, where's my effin' toolbar gone?

Office 2000

Why upgrade? No, I do not want "to use Office on the Cloud".

DOCX format can go jump also.

I still remember the trick to be able to use Access 97 and 2000 on the same computer, you had to rename a font to be able to install both.

NBN collapses^* into chaos^*

And the rest!

There are some concerns if may be up to 10 years late already

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-22/nbn-rollout-could-be-delayed-by-10-years3a-expert/4589520

As will a lot of government projects that start out with good intentions, someone has found a way to scam it and will continue doing so until they crack down on it.

Six things a text editor must do - or it's a one-way trip to the trash

Green text on a black background

Tends to freak people out these days, they think I have a terminal window open when really it is just a text editor.

I have done a global search and replace that did 10,000 replacements at once and it was a bit slow, but did not fall over. Re-uploading all the files again to the web server took longer.

I still use a text editor to look at HTML files and for my writing, I just copy and paste into a Word (2000) for a spell check.