Posts by DM2012

VBScript nudged nearer to the grave with next big Windows 11 update

Re: Javascript instead of VBscript

The only reason it's survived so long is because there's so many legacy VBA macros out there that there would be an absolute revolt from enterprise if it was removed at this point.

Cybersecurity programs everywhere are battling to shut down VBA macros wherever possible, or enable them only via exemption processes (I'm in the middle of yet another one of them at the moment) but the backlash from end users is often harsh. It's going to take a while before MS can fully kill it off without pissing a lot of heavy spenders off

GNU screen 5 proves it's still got game even after 37 years

Re: Android client?

Do you have Termux installed? If so, "pkg install screen" will get you going

Shocks from a hairy jumper crashed a PC, but the boss wouldn't believe it

Re: capital of BC

Thankyou, I couldn't follow the rest of the story after that Booboo.

GitHub publishes RSA SSH host keys by mistake, issues update

From the company that..

.. actually provides secrets push protection as a feature on all repos.

Realizing this is getting out of hand, Coq mulls new name for programming language

Alternative name suggestion

Perhaps they should consider renaming it "pollo"? It captures the essence of coq but won't offend the Mericuns out there

*sniggers in Spanish*

Multi-factor auth fatigue is real – and it's why you may be in the headlines next

At the very least though, the MFA prompt can alert the user to the discrepancy, even after they click accept (e.g. hey we notice you're holding your phone in Australia but we have a login request from Russia - are you absolutely sure that's you?). And it can also be based on learning usage patterns - once the user has confirmed that they are indeed logging in from Russia enough times over a few days, the system comes to accept it. Multiple levels of imperfection, hoping to reduce the risk

Google keeps legacy G Suite alive and free for personal use

Too late.

Literally 3 days after I migrated my family mail, contacts and calendars to Fastmail.

I've just seen too many Google services come and go, and while gmail was lovely while it lasted for me, it's too much of a hard dependency for me to rely on the whims of the marketing and finance departments of a conglomerate in terms of what they whether they want to continue a free product.

I guess I can continue to use G as an SSO provider for the time being, but am slowly going through my various services to ensure I have an email-based backup login, in case they decide to pull the pin on that service as well

Is it decadent that I use four different computers each day, at different times?

Re: Only four?

Yeah, they're sneaking in everywhere. I have 3 laptops for work, 1 NAS, a Nvidia Shield for TV, a phone, a tablet and a Kindle, all of which are in use just about every day.

This is probably why I feel the need for a tech sabbatical over summer.

Stack Overflow survey: Microsoft IDEs dominate, GCP and Azure battle behind AWS

It actually does change it a decent amount.

VS Code: 71.07% (Professional developers)

IntelliJ + Android Studio + PyCharm + WebStorm + PhpStorm: 29.69+21.76+16.27+9.15+8.55 = 85.42% (Professional developers)

Having said that, I do prefer VSC these days as a general editor.

Ably blog claims company doesn't need Kubernetes to scale, surge in traffic takes down entire website

If you think k8s is OTT shiney shiney trendy...

Wait till you lay eyes on Istio

Inventor of the graphite anode – key Li-ion battery tech – says he can now charge an electric car in 10 minutes

Re: There still remains......

You had me at "I used to run a nuclear reactor on a submarine"

Unfixable Apple M1 chip bug enables cross-process chatter, breaking OS security model

Re: Major security risk

The 5 months we spent in lockdown last year didn't feel particularly short. Depends on your PoV.

Sent from my M1 Macbook in the centre of Melbourne on day 1 of Melbourne lockdown 4.0

LastPass to limit fans of free password manager to one device type only – computer or mobile – from next month

Re: Rebulid?

XC looks decent for desktop. Which client would you recommend for Android devices?

Apple reportedly planning to revive the MagSafe charging standard with the next lot of MacBook Pros

Typing this on a 2020 16" MBP.

I'm glad they've standardised on USB-C, which most other vendors have now too (although my Lenovo Thinkpad sitting next to me has both A and C which is nice). The dongle-madness is starting to finally flush through as more peripherals are USB-C native finally.

As for the Touchbar - once they put the native Esc key back in, it became far less offensive, but doesn't really add much. I had the previous MBP without the Esc button AND the butterfly k/b and it was such a nightmare to work with I swapped it back out for my 2012 one. I've had BetterTouchTool for years on a bunch of Macs and once it got Touchbar support, I used it to add widgets to tell me my IP address, CPU load and the weather outside just to make it less useless. But overall, even after nearly 5 years the bar still doesn't really add any value.

As for MagSafe - bring it on. Allow charging with USB-C if it's all that's available in an office, but for home, MagSafe is definitely the way to go.

Android without Google – and yes it has apps: The Reg talks to founder about the /e/ smartphone

Can confirm

PowerShell 7.1 Release Candidate is lurking around the corner, but first there's Preview 6 to poke and prod

Re: So What?

Long time (25 years, bloody hell where did the time go) Unix guy here, and I only really became acquainted with PS last year. TBH (and I can't believe I'm defending anything Microsofty, but I use VSCode so I guess I jumped that shark a while ago) it's actually pretty impressive, especially when considering it ships as standard with all Windows servers.

The syntax certainly isn't succinct (although they've gone to lengths to add TLA aliases to a lot of common commands), but the some of the stuff you get out of the box is quite neat - autocomplete of any parameter to any command along the lines of oh-my-zsh without the need to install shit, decent documentation on par with man pages and good community repos.

I wouldn't call it my favourite scripting tool yet, but when you're stuck on an enterprise client's server with no internet access and need to run some ETL tasks it's pretty handy. The cross-platform part is a bonus for me as it means I can dev and my scripts locally and test them in iTerm on Mac without having to stare at Windows all day, then zip them up and ship them across as needed.

Boffins bash Google Translate for sexism

Chinese isn't gender neutral in that form

The word for "he" in Mandarin translates to 他

The word for "she" is 她

Both are pronounced "tā", but in written form, I'm not sure how Google Translate could mix them up?

Riddle me this: TypeScript's latest data type is literally unknown

I'm not historically an M$ fan by any stretch, having been a dev since the 80s, then through the first versions of IE to present, but Typescript (and to some extent, Flow, which we used for about a year before switching because of the faster feedback loop, better tooling integration and better library definitions in TS) has been a godsend for productivity.

For those who don't use it, just the benefit it provides of preventing stupid errors like "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'c' of undefined" when referencing a nested property like a.b.c is enough to make it worthwhile on any project of more than 100 lines. That, and no more Babel + plugins!

Did Apple leak a photo of its new Macbook Pro in an OS update? Our survey says: Yes

Great for debugging *sigh*

There goes "Step Over" / "Step Into" / "Step Out" Fn key touch-typing while trying to stumble through vendor code

Malcolm Turnbull's run Australia's NBN for two years. How's he done?

Re: 12/1 seriously?

I live 1km from the centre of Melbourne CBD, and have a naked DSL connection speed of 5.5Mbps. Netflix still runs fine over it. I'll be very happy with 12Mbps and at this rate, I'll even consider it broadband!

Mine's the one with the passport to get me to a country that has a future.

OUCH: Google preps ad goo injection for Android mobile Gmail app

Re: K9 Mail

.... And.. installed. Thanks for the tip!

Jelly Bean finally overtakes Gingerbread in Android share

Re: I just got upgraded last Friday

I gave up waiting for the S2 upgrade a few months ago, so installed Cyanogenmod 10.1 on mine. While there is no "stable" version of the firmware, I've found the nightlies to be very, very stable for quite some time (read: no lockups, reboots or random display/sound glitches that I've seen). Android 4.2, no carrier/Samsung guff, and a neat "Privacy Guard" mode which stops apps from accessing your personal details. I've also found the battery life excellent compared to whatever the last official Sammy release was.

Web host Linode, hackers clash over credit-card raid claim

CC numbers?

I'm curious (genuinely - not taking a swipe at a well respected vendor): given that so many payment processors allow token recurring payments, why would Linode need to store full customer credit card numbers in any form?

Is there a major cost saving associated with directly transmitting card numbers every month to a bank that would outweigh the risk of keeping full card details in your own systems?

Review: HTC One

Re: No microSD AGAIN

Not that fussed on the MicroSD or Sense (which looks less intrusive this time around), but same as you past experiences with HTC phones and their build quality - including the time they have spent in warranty service instead of my pocket - means I give people the same recommendation as you. I don't care if HTC claims the thing can cook you dinner and massage your feet; wait 6 months and see what the quality reports are like.

Corollary: Never buy the latest and greatest phone. Give the market a few months to determine what it's like beyond the tech reviewers' standard "one week with...." article.

Study: Gay marriage support linked to pr0n consumption

Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...

A correlation thoroughly contradicted by the first 5 minutes of that thoroughly well researched and peer reviewed movie, Idiocracy.

Fanbois rejoice: iPhone 5, iPad Mini finally jailbroken

AppleTV 3?

I wonder how long before it can be broken...

Train crash knocks out fibre cables, delays 9/11 hearing

9 years?

Hang on a minute.. It's nearly 11 years to the day since the attacks, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed was arrested in March 2003 - over 9 years ago.

Now, I'm all for justice - but how does it take *9 years* since an arrest to not even have had a pretrial hearing?!

Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion review

Wow

I think this is the first time Australians have been on the other end of the Great Apple Tax (GAT). At $20.99 AUD (about 14 quid) we're actually getting something cheaper from the big A than our northern cousins. At that price I might even upgrade!

Android Firefox: Screaming, awesome, you'll go blind etc

If you're lucky enough to have an Icecream Sandwich mobile, ICS Browser+ beats Chrome and even Dolphin hands down.

Linus Torvalds drops F-bomb on NVIDIA

Re: @AC

Not in my experience. Linux desktop with NVidia has *always* been painful

Re: @AC

Or Google...

Space shuttle Enterprise makes final voyage – to New York

Why, are you expecting an aluminium airframe to rust?

Twelve... classic 1980s 8-bit micros

Re: Parsec!

LOVED that game. I have fond memories of playing it with my dad, and my cousins, trying to outdo each other. I don't know how many Wico Command Control joysticks we went through trying to get through those tunnels.

Also loved the computer. Soldering up a 2 port > 1 port joystick connector box was my first electronics hack.

TI BASIC was da bomb!

Oz launches DNSChanger testing site

Dan

How about at least making the website https with a verifiable certificate?

Amazon names date for Kindle Touch touchdown

Meh

The Touch arrived in Oz a couple of weeks ago. I was desperate for one before Christmas, and would have ordered online if they delivered outside of the US. But, having now played with one in store, I'm glad I didn't get it. It feels slow and clumsy, and unlike the older Kindle, it feels cheap. Refresh times really haven't improved in years too.

Also, the web browser is still "experimental". I know it's just an e-reader, but still I think it could have been better polished.

Smoked by Android: Microsoft coughs up free laptop

Re: "throttling non-WinPhone devices"

In this situation I wouldn't bother with a MAC level throttle. A transparent HTTP proxy on the wifi network, which identifies clients (and hence OS) based on user agent, would be enough to get the job done!

Apache releases first upgrade to HTTP Server in six years

Re: Not just maturity ...

I guess you missed the news on the Linux kernel then :)

Its currently at 3.2.7, with 3.3 in rc