Posts by Jon Brunson

Masked passwords must go

Sounds to me like

"waa waa waa waa, I can't type my password on my mobile phone properly, change your website to make life easier for me"

This man should be fired for suggesting such stupid advise.

Critical Windows vulnerability under attack, Microsoft warns

There is a fix!

If there is a fix for this, then which haven't MS pushed it out using Windows Update?

Google accused of selling free clicks

@David Wilkinson

Your analogy is flawed.

You suggest that "the guy they hire just stands at the front door and hand the fliers to anyone already walking through the door." - which is not what Google are doing. The fliers aren't just going to anyone who are already walking through the door, they're going to thousands of other people who are looking for a resturant; any resturant.

Yes a few go to those are "already walking through the door", but not all of them, and certainly not a high percentage of them are, and the only way the fliers are getting to those people are if the original guy (Google) hires a friend (Nbcsearch) who hires a friend (LocalPages) who hires a friend (WhenU) to hand them out on his behalf.

Dell designs 10in netbook for Bash Street

Am I the only one ...

... who said "owch" when they read £314?

Pirate Win 7 ruse used to build botnet

Microsoft Torrents

I wish Microsoft would have an official torrent tracker, it took me eight hours to download Win 7 RC1 from the MSDN on launch day, only to find when it finished the CRC check failed. I was sooo happy. Not.

Yes! It's the invisible¹ shed²!

I've always wondered about an invisibility cloak

Surely if the light bends around the "cloak", then no light is going inside the cloak, therefore if you were under the cloak, you wouldn't be able to see anything?

MPs to probe ISP snooping and throttling

ISP need to decide

ISP need to decide if they are content providers (like tv/radio) or service providers (like gas/electric).

If they are the former, then it is there job to censor content appropriately, they are liable for everything, and we (as customers) cannot be held accountable for their in-action.

If they are the latter, then they need to give us unrestricted access to the service they provide, it is up to us how we use it, and are therefore accountable for our own actions.

BBC goes live... over Wi-Fi

Doesn't work

On my G1:

"Your device appears to be unable to support this service."

Shame really, it'd be nice if I could watch a bit of TV during my lunch break

UK.gov to get power to force ISPs to block child porn

If they know

If they already know all of the websites which have child porn on them, why not shut the sites down? Or why can't they track the users who are regularly visiting these websites and prosecute them (like they do for downloading music)?

I don't like child porn, or any other form of child/adult/animal/mineral/vegetable abuse, but filtering is not going to cure the problem. They should focus on stopping the abuse at the root, not wrongly blacklisting Wikipedia pages.

Windows Home Server fixes bugs with Power Pack 2

@Scott K

I back-up my server about once a month to a USB-Drive which I keep at my parents. I imagine the same should go for anyone else - no good backing-up your desktops to a server in the same physical location. Although hardware failure is more likely, I'm more worried about a fire wiping out my entire life-times collection of photos than a disk failing.

I think I started something here

I have one (serious) question I'd like to ask:

If you've got a home server, what are you backing up from your desktop machines? Surely all your data is on the server? Otherwise what's the point?

Everything of mine is on my server box; pictures, music, video, documents, everything. The only think I can think of which I'd need to back-up from my desk/laptops is saved games from the likes of Spore, Half-Life, or whatever. Am I alone in this? Am I doing something wrong? Am I missing something?

Too expensive

Make it free, and then you might be able to take a small slice of the Linux Home Server market.

Facebook encourages ISP customer protests over Phorm

My domain

How do I get my domain added to Phorm's list of traffic it will not intercept?

Nokia, Nintendo and Sony struck in wireless patent spat

Bit late

Surely the DS/PSP/N-series have been doing this for... 4 years? If they didn't feel the need to protect their "IP" back then, why should they do it now? Oh, I know why - it's because there's more devices out there infringing, so they can get more money! It's not like they can say "oh we didn't know these obscure devices existed until now". I think if you don't protect your IP, after a year of an "infringer" being in the market you lose all rights your patent.

eBay revenue shrinks for first time in history

Good!!

I hope they crash & burn! I sold one of my Wii games on there last week, of my £19.55 sale price, eBay took £2.98 through four different fees - that's over 15%!! Why the hell any decent person would want to sell stuff on there any more is beyond me...

I'll stick to the local paper in the future - free all the way!

Nintendo Wii to get video channel in 2009

iPlayer in the UK?

I wonder if this will also be the first steps towards a proper BBC iPlayer channel for us in the UK? I know you can use the web browser, but the less clicks the better!

Western Digital WD TV HDD-to-HDTV adaptor

Rubbish.

Grab yourself an old PC, and stick XBMC on it, much cheaper, and far superior.

Rogue Android apps rack up hidden charges

I blame the users

It warns you before you download any app what it can do on your phone (even pathetic stuff like "disable sleep mode"), if you accept that the app you're downloading can connect when it wants, then it's your own fault!

Blu-ray backers highlight rising demand

Maybe I shouldn't be commenting but...

... I, like many other normal people, don't have a HDTV, Blu-Ray or the likes, and have no intention of buying one in the near future. I'm happy with my TV set up, DVDs look fine to me, the only HDTV footage I've ever seen a noticable difference in is football, which doesn't interest me.

Sites like The Register and Slashdot will always be biased because tech-heads read them and will always get people posting comments about the death of DVD being just around the corner. The trouble is it's not tech-heads who make this stuff main-stream, it's average people. It's your mum & dad, it's your brother and sister who would be lost on the 'net without Google and MSN.

I imagine the death of DVD will be very, VERY slow and fairly painless. Blu-Ray will eventually over-take DVD, but not in Q1 2009, maybe by Christmas 2012. Oh and at least 50% of those Blu-Ray players will be plugged into SDTVs, or setup incorrectly.

Academics warn of EU 'three strikes' back door plan

Re: Perfectly reasonable (Conor Turton)

What you say is perfectly fine - if a court had found the defendant guilty of breaking copyright (which afaik is a civil, not a criminal offence, and therefore not illegal - someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Unfortunately for those who strike-out, there will be no court, no lawyers, no proof, no anything. All the copyright holder has to do is claim that an IP address is breaking copyright, the ISP match that up to an account and the account holder gets a strike.

Doesn't that sound scary to you? Shouldn't the defendant get to defend themselves?

Sky channels return to cable

So what?

I haven't missed Sky1 at all since it went away.

Carphone Warehouse gets into games consoles, Macs

In-line advertising

So how much did Sony pay you to say "Whether CW’s gaming walls will welcome handheld consoles, such as the PlayStation Portable"?

Don't you know there are more than twice as many DSs in the UK compared PSPs? You'd hardly mention Dogpile when talking about search engines, or Somerfield when talking about supermarkets, so why mention the market-non-leader in this instance?

</fanboy rant>

Next-gen Wii to be launched within three years

Wow, really?

It must be such a hard job thinking up rumours, hmm now let me think:

- Wii launched in 2006 + 5 year console cycle = 2011

- Wii is a HUGE brand for Nintendo, so they wouldn't want to ditch that advantage (Although I'd go with Super Wii, like the Super NES)

- HD will probably be in over 50% of first-world homes by 2011, but of course it'll still be viewable in SD for those without

- Storage space only grows over time, so it's VERY unlikely that Super Wii would contain the same, or less storage than Wii does

- Keeping the brand name Wii means there's a damn good chance it'd play Wii games

I only hope Super Wii will come with Motion Plus integrated into the Super Wiimotes.

we need a "rolls eyes" icon

Woman sues EA over 'secret' Spore DRM

No no no!!

"The lawsuit asks the judge to ... award the plaintiffs the purchase price of Spore plus damages"

No no no!! They should be asking for a big red box, at least 10cm² to be on the front cover of the physical box, and there should be a huge warning that you have to tick a little box agreeing to on digital downloads saying that this software installs "malware" and you realise that you can only install the game five times. But ask that this be done not only on Spore, but ALL games that use "malware" copy protection.

Refunds wont hurt EA that much, but warning customers off will.

Hands on with the T-Mobile G1

@ Jerome

> Give me Android on a sexy slimline phone with a nice big touchscreen, standard headphone and USB sockets, and a decent camera with flash, and I'll happily pay you up to £500 for it.

Ditto, but without the camera stuff (I have a camera that is a camera), bigger storage would be a nice addition (unless it could happily stream audio over the Internet).

EA in Spore DRM climbdown

No title

I wish someone would have the balls to ask EA why they're bothering with DRM in Spore - it's _already_ been cracked, those who don't _want_ to pay for it know how to download it, the DRM is *not* stopping people pirating the game. If they removed the DRM entirely they would get more sales from those people who want to buy it but wont because of the DRM. But no-one would ever dare ask them that, no-one has the guts to stand up to the almighty EA.

Beside we all know that this is not about piracy, it's about second-hand sales. Selling on your copy of Spore would be a nightmare as the game is linked to your EA account, whoever you sell the game to would need to know your details to access the on-line content, which is a significant part of the game.

</FUD>

ITC to probe Wii patent violation claims

Just Wii?

Surely both the 360 and PS3 violate their very vague "navigation interface display system that graphically organises content for display on television" patent?

Or is there no money in suing the Microsoft & Sony gaming divisions?

Idea for new icon: we need a big question mark or a "WTF?" icon!

British boffins perfect process to make any item '100% waterproof'

Ooooo

If they used this to make small digital waterproof cameras, I'd bite. Having to faff with my current waterproof case with its gels and seals is not that easy (especially when you start your two week holiday abroad and find you forgot the sealing gel).

Facebook sued for Beacon blunder

Facbook down

I guess that's why I can't get to Facebook atm then...

Sky plays the victim over Ofcom pay TV rights probe

Kill exclusivity deals!

I agree with A J Stiles - put an end to exclusivity deals in broadcasting rights.

It's not like Sky/BBC/ITV cameras record the games, would it really be so bad to send those video signals to multiple broadcasters at the same time? No monopoloy, no need for multiple subscriptions, no worries! Personally I'd watch "a modern version of a pigs bladder around for 90 minutes" on BCC HD (thanks freesat) just to skip all the adverst & get my TV Licence's worth!

Which reminds me, if you're paying ~£500pa for Sky & Sanata, rememeber to add you TV Licence - £660+ to watch sports on TV? Owch...

Nintendo says no to Wii price cuts

Well duh.

Can anybody really see Nintendo saying - "Our sales are astronomical, so to piss off our shareholders, and make less profit, we're going to drop the price by £50"?

Even *if* they were planning on a Christmas price drop, they wouldn't tell us, they'd hardly want to put people off buying one now and making more money off them. There in the console business to make money, plain & simple.

Sony, MS want control of PS3, Xbox iPlayer, Beeb boss claims

Re: Im surprised PS3 doesn't already work.

As you say, the PS3 (and Wii) has a Flash 7 player, the iPlayer requires Flash 8+ (different video encoders), well, it did until Wednesday when they made a Flash 7 compatible iPlayer which, as Graeme pointed out, works fine with the PS3 browser.

Shame there's no full-screen option though, otherwise I'd ditch VM in a heartbeat (especially after they're trying to charge me £10 for a missed payment - I pay by direct debit, so how's that possible?)

The BBC have also said they are working on an iPlayer for Wii that will not require the web browser. A iPlayer Channel on Wii? I live in hope.

Blu-ray 'to bloom', now HD DVD's dead

@phix8

Completely agree. I can rememeber "back in the day" when DVD was first announced, they seemed to be marketing it as a mass storage device saying things like "every episode of The Simpsons on a disc the size of a CD!", but that seems to have gotten dropped in favor of "extras" - woohoo(!)

Why on earth can they only fit four episodes of Voyager on a single DVD? Like you, I'd have one disc with everything on in acceptable quality over HD on multiple discs any day.

Byron review calls for computer game ratings

Children's Version

You can download the full report, executive summary and children's version at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/byronreview/

Wow, so much hate!

Can't believe how much hate there is for this report, surely by now we all know that MPs and people in power don't have any common sense (otherwise they wouldn't be MPs - ha!), they need things spelt out for them, and this is what the Byron report does.

Some people don't seem to have read TFA which says:

"On video games, Dr Byron recommends a range of high profile and *targeted efforts* to help *inform parents* what games are right for their children"

One of the problems is that while the current ratings system is voluntary, yet somehow legally enforceable, it’s confusing! I’m a parent, and a gamer and having different rating systems (or none at all) on different games is just backwards! It needs to be standardized, and it makes sense to mirror an existing system.

The report also recommends that computers are brought into communal areas of the house. I agree with this, we have five consoles (from various generations) most are setup in our dining room, and our Wii is setup on our main TV in the living room. There’s nowhere for my six year old to game without me or his mum being able to monitor what he’s up to. We also spent time educating him on which games he can and can’t play, and he respects and abides by the rules.

I don’t want to go off on a tangent here, but the whole thing is part of a bigger issue of kids doing as they please with no consequences. Be it at home, school, or out & about kids *know* that they can pretty much get away with anything, and some have enough lack of respect for others that they often do.

When my son is old enough, he’ll have his own PC and I’ll trust him to do the responsible thing, when it comes to “bad sites” (i.e. porn) I’ll teach him about it, not just lock him out. Like Mick said – “You can't, and shouldn't, protect them from everything otherwise they'll grow up totally unprepared for the world.” I think that sums it up nicely.

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society” - Theodore Roosevelt

eBay gets negative feedback about ban on negative feedback

Re: caffeine addict

Exactly what I've been thinking about this whole issue!

Cigarette ash proves a drag for Nintendo's Wii

RTFM

I guess noone saw this in the manual then - http://www.pinkgodzillagames.com/news/wii%20smoking.jpg

Hannah Montana fails to defy laws of physics

Should have done it old skool

Disney's obviously missed a trick here, as their 20th Century Hocus Pocus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hocus_Pocus_%28film%29) is much better than this 21st Century effort!

Microsoft backpedals on Blu-ray for Xbox 360 comments

*if*

I didn't know chart positions defined quility or affordability! Learn something new every day! </sarcasm>

All-in-all this is obvious really. MS back HD-DVD, so *if* HD-DVD fails (which they think wont happen), they will make a Blu-Ray player for the 360 *if* there's enough demand.

Remember - *if*!

The year's biggest big thing? You be the judge!

Wiiiiiiiiiiii

I seriously doubt many people will look back and think "you know, it was great when we got VS2008, such wild parties we had" *ahem*

Somehow I think 2007 will be remembered for the year that:

- Nintendo finally got their revenge on Sony (if you're a Nintendo fan)

- Sony outsold Wii for two whole weeks (if you're a Sony fan)

- You bought a Wii to complement your 360 (if you're a Microsoft fan)

- or the year that you started gaming (if you're a normal person)

Nintendo kills Wii ads due to console shortage

Re: Load of crap

Wii is over a year old, so your proposed ban wouldn't affect Wii anyway.

Sounds to me like Wii is in high demand in the *UK* but not in *Europe*, Nintendo don't appear to see it at that level though and distribute Wiis all over Europe evenly, with them piling up in countries where the demand is low, and sold out in the those where it's high.

Wii wins console war, market watcher claims

Keep going Nintendo

"Factor in PS2 and PSOne sales, of course, and Sony remains the market leader in games consoles"

Even when you factor in all of Nintendo's home consoles (including the two before the PS-era) Sony's way ahead with over 226m console sales vs Nintendo's 175m (Source: Wikipedia).

If you add the GameBoy + DS vs PSP to the mix, well, that's a different story....... (424m vs 251m in Nintendo's favor if you're wondering)

Sony unveils PlayTV telly tuner for PS3

Hmm, bargin!

... not!

Why not buy Sony's own SVR-S500? It's got twin tuners, 80Gb HDD, and is a cheaper than this add-on, it'll also mean that there's more space on your PS3's HDD for games & the likes.

Additionally, is this Freeview Playback verified? (Serious question)

Girls prefer pink: official

Pink!

I prefare pink over blue, and I'm male. Am I the anomoly?

Alcatel unveils mobile phone under £20

Not as sexy as the F3 though...

No need for a cheap phone to look ugly!

I bought a Moto F3 as a temp. phone while my XDA got fixed, and it's was lovely! People kept thinking I had the latest & greatest Moto phone, but it was a cheapo £15 job, ha!

Logitech keyboard rides the Wave

Nice, but...

It looks nice, and I'm sure it'll cure cancer, or something, but why do keyboard manufactures these days seems to want to mess with the basic keyboard layout?

The 6 Keys of Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDown have been rearranged on this particular one, a massive bug-bear of mine being a developer and a high-frequency user of those keys.

They also appear to have gone with the perhaps even more annoying trait of replacing the Function-Keys with "Function"-Keys - replacing the different modes in The Sims 2 with Back/Forward/Stop/Refresh! Yes there's an "F-Lock", but that's off be default.

The last keyboard I bought was second-hand off of eBay because it seems impossible* to buy a normal keyboard anymore. *sigh*

* may not be true

Virgin faces customer exodus over Sky battle

Madness

Anyone leaving Virgin to join Sky just so they can get SkyOne is mad.

Since we left Sky (We had everything, except sports, but incl Sky+) and moved to ntl we've watched MORE TV. Why? On Demand.

the amount of stuff they offer on demand is staggering. Ok yes I know they don't really provide it, but they make it damned easy to access. We now what TV when WE want, watch the programs WE want to at times to suit US. It really is what this whole on demand stuff is all about.

I'd take On Demand over SkyOne anyday, who really wants to watch re-runs of The Simpsons for 2 hours every day? One episode on Channel Four is good enough for me.

Now all we need is a V+ box to record the stuff that isn't On Demand!

Nintendo Wii

Quite simply, Wii rocks

Sorry, but isn't the PS3 just a "souped-up" PS2? Isn't the "gimmick" of motion sensing in the PS3 controller? Isn't Sony screwing over Europe by launching here in March AT THE EARLIEST? Isn't the Blu-Ray an unproven tech that we'll get bored of in 2 years when we've either all got blu-ray (or HD-DVD to be fair) players, or digitally downloading our movies?

It seems the people knocking it (including my MS- & Sony-fanboy friends) knock the Wii and say it's crap... all up until they play it. Now they want one and have been round here all Wiikend playing.

"The Wii [is] the first **games console** to get you up off your rump and onto your feet" - afaik eye toy & DDR are not "games console"s.

PS. Also, bare in mind in relation to the price is that our price has 17.5% VAT on top, the US price never includes tax, and in most states they don't pay any anyway, so it's our government that's ramping up the price, not Nintendo.

PPS. In reply to Matt Crerar - from what I've heard from shop owners (Woolworths, Tesco & Asda - game/station seemed unaffected by this -), Nintendo shipped the number of units they promised, but a ship got "lost" at sea (I don't know if they meant sunk, or just caught up in a bad storm) which is why those units didn't arrive on time. Still, I got mine, played it for 20:40hrs yesterday and am very happy (and lucky it would seem!) :o)