Posts by Jamie Jones

Firefox reveals new look: rounded rectangles

Window dressing

Bah humbug

Also.... buttons disapearing if they don't apply (back/forward etc) - arrrrgh - I hate that - it means the buttons you would want to use move about - that's terrible UI design in my opinion.

World's first selfie found on Wayback Machine

Re: I disagree...

" Granted, it may be the first photo taken of themselves online"

Really? In 2002? You must be very young to say that!

I posted my first "selfie" online in 1990, and I was late to the party! Or doesn't it count because I wasn't making a "duck-face"?

KILL SWITCH 'BLOCKED by cell operators' to pad PROFITS, thunders D.A.

Re: In light of this

Steven, you sound like the sort of deluded person who thinks it's good that water/food/air are regulated to ensure that they are safe!

Next you''ll be saying that you agree with the stringent tests new cars have to go through, along with building safety codes, and those pesky fire regulations!

London businesses to signal UNSWERVING LOYALTY to capital with .london domain

If they are so stupid to not understand the hierarchial system.....

..... just as well they aren't running the postal service!

Why couldn't Icann tell .london to sod off and pester nominet for london.uk (who I would hope would say no - maybe offering london.city.uk etc.)

Of course, it's money. A total conflict of interest.

I want my new postal address to be "jamie". That's it - I want that to be routable globally

And before someone says that 'one word addresses' could be sent to a particular place to deal with these new personalised addresses, I'd like to add that millions have signed up to the scheme, and more are to follow.

And all the worlds post has to be sorted with no regional distinction.

I may post a letter to my next door neighbour, and it may be delivered via America.

fter a while, we'd soon be wishing that there was some hierarchical system instead..

---

Another thing, web addresses become less noticable. You can put on your logo or advert "mysite.com" without needing to clarify further...

Remenber when gmtv got the domain gm.tv ? How many people, on seeing gm.tv at the bottom of the screen knew it was a web address?

It's about time the major ISPs got together and announced that they'd block these new stupid tlds. Heck, all it would take is for google to refuse to index them and a few major isps refusing to resolve them!

LOOK UP! Comet ISON could EXPLODE in our skies – astronomers

saddo

I read that as JSON :-(

True fact: Britain is losing its brains

"True fact"

I hope that title phrase was meant to be ironic!

Build your own WORKING Sonic Screwdriver... for a UNDER A FIVER

It's been confusingly moved to the top of the forum page

Nice !

Great article, as always, Bill.

I love the self-deprecating humour too!

I thought you'd left El Reg though....

Om-nom-nom-nom! Google's Cookie Monster DEVOURS MORE DRIVES

Re: "This probably diabetic creature"

Most diabetics that I've met have a sense of humour

Re: Correctly done!

"white text on a black background (gee, like this El Reg page!)"

Huh?

'A measly 3 Instagrams? NO!' Sexy selfie Snapchat spurns Facebook's $3bn

Re: Reality Vs. 3 billion.

I agree. When you gamble away a cool 3 billion, you must need your head examined..

Especially, as you say, the lawsuits will start coming - not to mention that once people realise that you CAN'T make such a system work as designed, what is there left of 'value'?

Ok, the typical targetted audience may not be able to override the deletions - after all, they are the same people who think it's secure in the first place; but all it takes is for someone to release an app to automate it, and their reputation will be in ruins.. At which point, a desperate game of cat and mouse will be their only other option.

Mandatory HTTP 2.0 encryption proposal sparks hot debate

Wrong layer! IPv6 ip-level encryption

Better to do this at the transport layer if it's to be mandatory.

I note that the IPv6 standard used ro mandate ip level security, but this is now optional:

http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/34405/did-the-nsa-subvert-the-security-of-ipv6/"

Who! wants! cursed.com? Yahoo! flogs! domains! in! multimillion-dollar! sale!

Re: Poo

" E.g. someone has registered PooReview.com.

Why?"

To review poo of course!

Really?

In the days where everyone just googles or facebooks, I would have thought the "domain bubble" burst a long time ago.

Do people who want some diy stuff really just 'guess' at diy.com these days?

Google makes Gmail EVEN NOISIER, or should that be nosier?

Re: Google slow?

"... but stripping the "q" query so that BBC and other webmasters can's see the query terms. We already knew about the stripping bit - a sharp practice that violates protocols and withholds information from web site owners who then have to use google analytics."

.....Except that they aren't doing that

It's up to the browser to send the referer(sic) string, and this value is expected to be the URL of the linking page.

The only way they could hide this would be to use a POST rather than a GET for their search form, but still the browser could be rewritten to compensate for that if required (though, breaking expected protocols in the first place.)

Ultimately, whether to send referring information is entirely down to the browser. Google has sod all control if your browser decides to tell a web site the URL of the previous page.

So, if you are seeing any protocol violations, blame the users browser, or maybe any proxy they use - nothing to do with Google.

What *does* happen, however, is related to Google now allowing users to use https access.

The standards specify that a browser mustn't send referral information if coming from a secure site. If they did, *that* would be a protocol violation. Again, this is a browser thing - nothing to do with Google.

Ironically, the closest Google come to protocol violation in all this is in the ways they try *to* get the browser to send query data for https links - the exact opposite of stripping it!

They previously did this by first directing the browser to a specially crafted non-https address, which then bounced to the final destination, so making the browser pass referrer info through as a consequence. However, I think they now do this with a custom header, which capable browsers can parse appropriately.

Either way, the redirect mentioned by the original poster has nothing to do with query-stripping, but instead, history gathering, and presumably some kind of click-through statistics.

Re: Just say 'enough', it's not that hard.

Seeing as you are changing your email address anyway, go for your own domain and get its email forwarded to your new mail-service.

That way, if you ever need to move again, at least your email address won't need to change.

New Forum Wishlist - but read roadmap first

Re: Some simple(!) suggestions!

Cheers!

As for the timestamp, more or less for that reason!

Not often, but sometimes there have been 2 articles on a story in the same day, and it's useful to know which is the most uptodate.

Also, if a story is about breaking news, it's useful to see the articles time (and/or last-updated time) to see how current the information is.

As you obviously know, the posting time is available on the main page, and there have been a number of occasions I've been reading an article, and have found myself going back to the main page to check the articles time - that's why I thought I'd mention it!

Sure, that information is largely irrelevent when the article is a few days old, but even then it could be useful on those occasions that a topic is covered twice in the same day.

Some simple(!) suggestions!

1) "Send Corrections" link

The "Send Corrections" link should be back at the bottom of the article (like it used to be, and as still mentioned on the 'House Rules' page!), and not just on the forum page.

2) Number of posts

When you click on a user-handle via the forum section (including your own) , it shows total number of posts (and join date).

If you click on 'My Posts', this information isn't present, and I don't know why!

3) Time-stamps

Any chance of articles being time-stamped, and not just date-stamped? - the time is displayed next to the article on the main index page, but not within the article itself!

4) Easier 'href' parsing

..... when posting HTML links.

5) Saving incomplete posts

I've often lost along post before posting it (especially when using a tablet) - Also, sometimes, I don't have enough time to complete a posting I'm working on - I'm sure that I'm not alone in either scenario!

Lately, if the browser has started playing up I've intentionally posted an incomplete post, just to continue writing it via the edit function. (And 'preview' is no use, as the content is still not saved remotely)

I think an option to save posts without publishing would be most useful - you could modify the 'preview' button to be 'preview/save' - that would work as it does now, but also save the draft copy.

You already have 'held post awaiting moderation' facility - holding the post in a similar way, but with non-expiring edit/post buttons would be great. Once a post is finally posted, it would simply be treated as it is now.

You could even delete non-posted drafts after a week (for example)

6) Keeping track of 'Anonymous cowards'

Sometimes it's hard to keep track of 'anonymous coward' posts.

It would be nice if each coward was assigned a unique identifier (seeing as all anonymous posts are from registered users)

As there would be concerns about genuine anons becoming more recognisable over time, you could have different random id's per user per article forum comment section - I.E. each id assigned to an anon is only trackable within that particular articles forum section. Maybe using the forum post id as a an internal reference?

This not only makes the forum more readable, it also stops anons gaming the system by replying favourably to their own posts.

The username could be shown as:

Anonymous Coward #2331

Where the number is a random or sequential one that hadn't already been used, and is created keyed on the users id, and the articles forum comment section id.

Obviously, once a user/article pair has been assigned an anon-id, they won't be assigned another one.

7) "My Posts" housekeeping

Any chance of the option to permanently delete our own rejected/withdrawn/un-posted(see above!) posts?

Cheers for listening!

Jamie

Re: Where has...

"..my little Bronze vulture award gone?"

To be bronze, you need to have made 100 posts in the last year. My guess is that a big bunch of your earlier posts are now more than a year old - knocking you below that threshold.

Cops: Bloke makes bet with wife. Wife loses - so hubby TASERS her

Re: Jamie Jones Before anybody suggests it is confined to the US ...

Woah there!

I was just following up on anons assumption, in what was a polite post.

But as you say, there are obnoxious twats like you all over the world.

Still, apologies for not knowing all-things-Matt - how stupid of me to not have read and remembered every bloody post your Highness has made. No doubt, I need to get out more(!)

Anyway, in my El Reg postings, I've mentioned where I live, where I've lived, a few of my personal domains, and even my main email address - I wouldn't expect anyone here to know any of this. Obviously you know it -if not, is that because I'm not as important as you?

Re: Before anybody suggests it is confined to the US ...

Nice reply Matt. (no sarcasm intended)

And yes, I've witnessed first hand the expectation of Sky etc. as a right!

One query - I realise the way 'anon' phrased it was antagonistic, but is the term 'yank' considered offensive?

I know that yank(ie) actually refers to the stereotypical Southern (USA) American, but it's generally used outside America to mean an American, and I thought with as much offensiveness as you calling us 'Brits'

Does our use of 'Yank' imply ignorance and insult to you?

Cheers, J.

Re: Before anybody suggests it is confined to the US ...

" Yes, and as we all know, America produces more trash per capita than anywhere else in the world."

You haven't seen the Jeremy Kyle show then?

Netflix, YouTube video killed the BitTorrent star? Duo gobble web traffic

" Once the content is on your network, it doesn't cost you anything to deliver it to the end user. They even are willing to do all the work to set the damn thing up!

Not often true!

Opening your network to a huge traffic increase may well cause capacity issues that may require infastructure upgrades.

Also - in the UK at least - most ISP's don't actually own the 'last mile' of the connection - or even often the National network (when applied to phone lines) - indeed this 'local hop' usually costs more than the internet links.

ISP's are always going to try and peer with any large source of traffic.

ISP's are always going to try and peer with any large source of traffic. - you'll see that the 2 you mention also peer with the bbc and even tvcatchup.com

Re: Seems reasonable

BBC iplayer is the same - get the html/xml/ etc. data from a uk ip, but the raw rtmp data url can be grabbed from anywhere...

Dodgy Kaspersky update borks THOUSANDS of NHS computers

Wow! Rolling/staggered updates!

Why didn't anyone think of that before(!)

Oooh! My NAUGHTY SKIRT keeps riding up! Hello, INTERNET EXPLORER

Re: If your not Asian, your opinion on this means nothing.

Hmmmm. I think the Taliban come out with a similar statement to this subject title, as do countries that have young girls marrying old men, and other places with laws we perceive as 'archaic' at best.

Ok, I used extremes to prove the point (I'm not comparing Japanese to the Taliban etc.) but it shows that such a line of 'reasoning' is bogus.

Privacy warriors haul NSA into court, demand swift end to mass call snooping

Re: Can we haul GCHQ into court?

asdf, am I allowed to say (as a non-American), that I agree with your post and the EFF opinions reported in the article?

And just in case, I totally agree with the original poster too!

Facebook gives THUMBS DOWN to its OWN design makeover

Re: One of the most recognised web icons,...

Ooops, I missed the bit about them adding their logo..

/gets coat

Anyway, I get your point, but adding to JDX's comment about the English language, I'd have thought a 'thumbs up' more universal than words..

One of the most recognised web icons,...

..... and they go and change it.

I'm no marketing bod, so can anyone explain this disregard for 'brand awareness' ?

Also, 'no additional coding required' could simply be saying that you don't need to edit the fb code on your site to alter the image url etc.

To all but the most pedantic, this phrase could be used to mean 'no changes to the code-block required'

Another DEVASTATING Chelyabinsk METEOR STRIKE: '7x as likely' as thought

Re: should I be 7 times more worried?

Just because they have revised the probability, it doesn't make the actual odds any different than they were last week, or last year etc.

So, just carry on as you did back then!

Ignorance is bliss!

Your kids' chances of becoming programmers? ZERO

Re: 6502/6809's rool btw...

Woah there! It was just a light-hearted nostalgic post.

No need to take if personally! It's not a competition! Those days were over 25 years ago (and my beloved Z80 ZX spectrum won! woooohooo! Mwwwwahahaha)

Incidently, I also did 6502 assembler (I used it to hack the school econet system), but seeing as it didn't power the speccy.... :-)

Resurgence of coding skills

As someone coming into computers in an era where we cared about every byte, and every cpu cycle, I hated the general philosophy of the last 15 years or so where "if it uses lots of memory, buy more memory! If it's slow, get a faster system! "

It was nice to see a 'back to basics' (pun not intended) with the rising popularity of smart-phones and embedded devices, but I'm beginning to see things getting worse again now that the power/capacity of these devices has greatly improved.

Re: So fix it!

"Don't you DARE downvote me, fracking kids. I have burnt through more keyboards than you have had anniversaries.

I upvoted you, but of course you know that a comment like that is like a red rag to a bull with those downvoters!

Yes, documentation is much better these days - In the early 90's, I basically taught myself Unix using the man pages. These seemed brilliant to me - all the information I'd require readily at hand.

However, I'm actually quite glad I didn't have access to more information - back then, if I got stuck, I'd have to work it out - now you just Google it!

"Now get off my fracking lawn!"

Sigh, those energy companies will do anything these days to find new sources of natural gas! :-)

Re: 6502/6809's rool btw...

Noooooooooooooo!

Z80 all the way! Loads of registers, secret instructions (8 bit manipulation of the IX and IY registers), and the powerful LDIR family of blockmove instructions!

Twitter, Facebook and pals keep BEELLIONS from treasury with exec pay tax break – report

Re: Blame the lawmakers!

Care to expand Mr Coward?

And what I do in the privacy of my bathroom is no-ones business!

Blame the lawmakers!

Ultimately (and I almost wrote "At the end of the day", which would make me eligible to be a Jeremy Kyle guest! ) it's the law that's at fault.

The whole thing stinks, but if their weaseling accountants didn't minimise a companies costs, they would not be doing their jobs properly .

The law is an arse etc., but surely the lawmakers could have used someone as competent as these accountants to ensure the law was drafted without the loopholes (or is there a hidden agenda?)

Microsoft in a TIFF over Windows, Office bug that runs code hidden in pics

Re: Windows 7 & 8 users should be fine?

" Windows 7 and Windows 8 users don't run with admin access by default..."

The problem with that is that a virus could still delete your personal files, and anything else you are able to do without admin..

Can a non-admin create startup scripts by default? (I ask. because I dont know)

The thing is, a lot can be done without admin privs - even a spamming-daemon (though it's ability to hide is restricted, and it's general effectiveness is greatly reduced if it can't configure auto-startup [see above])

Ye Bug List

Re: Banner

Minty, regarding the IE bug (and as you know, it is a bug, because what you are doing is part of the spec), see also this: http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/02/10/5a-missing-schema-double-download/

Incidently, this browser-bug screws up the 'w3m' browser too :-( -it tries to use ftp instead of http (though only apparrently on submitting a form) - so don't blame me if your firewall is logging ftp attempts from me!

Playtime's over: Next NSA boss may be torn away from US cyber-war effort

Civilian? So what !

So, are they shooting themselves in the foot by implying that civilians are more moral, and less corrupt?

Unfortuately, this isn't the case, and it means sod all anyway if the boss has the same remit and government permission.

Crack our 'military-grade' email encryption and we'll give you 5% of our firm

Re: Makes sense

..... So making your 5% stake more beneficial to them than to you!

A nice way to aquire an expert consultant!

In other news.....

"NSA aquires 5% stake in Hungarian startup"

More seriously, whilst I realise that a PR company probably released the story, it did seem awfully fluffy and full of buzzwords to me...

SR-71 Blackbird follow-up: A new TERRIFYING Mach 6 spy-drone bomber

Re: As an intellectual and technological excercise...

" Yes, but there is no public sector drive to do so. The best we get is military sector research. Even private sector research is hamstrung by needing to pay off, which stops lots of promising avenues of investigation."

Good point, and I agree with you.

""Another one I hear is 'I do the lottery to help good causes'."

Clearly bullsh!t: People do the lottery to help themselves, with the charitable donation just there so they can justify their gambling habit. And poor choice of gambling habit at that: Lotteries are atax on people who can't do maths."

Oh, definitely! That's why I then suggest they instead give all their stake to charity if they care so much!

And yes, it's no coincidence it's known in some circles as "a tax on the stupid!"

""Sigh - if youwanted to help good causes, you could give 100% of your stake, not 10%.."

More than that. Although the UK Health Lottery gives less and is essentially a grey-area scam."

Ah yes, as someone else piinted out, there are tax breaks etc.

As for the UK health lottery, I didn't realise that. I don't do any lottery, but thanks for the heads-up - I will bear that in mind if I discover any friends do.

Here's what YOU WON'T be able to do with your PlayStation 4

Re: 300 MB update

" Do you believe that Linux filesystems do not get fragmented? Because, you know, they do."

I don't know enough about Linux filesystems to comment, but I'd be surprised.

No proper fileststem suffers from major fragmentation issues if you use less than the recomnended 90% capacity.

Of course, this dossn't mean that files don't get fragmented - sometimes it's necessary.

None of the major unix systems I used to run suffered, neither did anyof the opensource offerings - indeed I remember being asked about this very topic, and on checking on a busy server that hadn't had a partition rebuild in 10 years, fragmentation was about 0.1%

VMS often had issues - mainly because directories had to be contiguous,but I doubt (though don't know) that any Linux partitions suffer the same fate.

And to be pedantic (before someone else says it) - the main thing that affects fragmentation isn't the filesystem type itself, but the driver that writes to it.