Posts by Alex Wright

ISS crew snaps erupting volcano

Only using Nikon D2?

I'm very surprised they haven't flown up a few D3Xs by now!

Gordon 'to sacky' Wacky Jacqui

:-P

And good riddance.

Philips SPC1330NC

Does it work with Linux or Mac?

Well?

Or is it another load of Windows only crap.

Disk platter sizes vary with drive speeds

Ummm? Stating the obvious?

No Comment.

Microsoft supplies Interpol with DIY forensics tool

Works on Macs does it?

How about Linux? FreeBSD? Solaris?

Or, more accurately EXT3 (4), JFS, XFS, or any of the more esoteric file systems?

"Running Linux sir? Must have something to hide!"

Budvar beats Anheuser-Busch in latest Budweiser battle

Its not beer

The reason American Bud tastes so bad is quite simple. Real beer has four ingredients - Malt, hops, water and yeast. The yeast turns the sugars in the malt into alcohol.

Malt (essentially roasted barley) adds flavour, body (in the form of non fermentable carbohydrates and soluble fibre) and sugar, and is expensive.

American Bud replaces most of the malt with rice. Rice doesn't taste of much, and has very little soluble fibre to give the "beer" body, and is cheap.

And, and this makes me laugh, they try and tell you this is a good thing!

Why no Lego Doctor Who? fans demand

A title is required

“Interestingly, Russell T Davies was scheduled to put in an appearance, but pulled out "because of his workload". This, we believe, is an Auntie euphemism for "because he was afraid of being asked why his Who scripts were such complete cobblers".“

Oh so true! RTD can't write for toffee.

Microsoft 24 hours late with IE8 pwn protection

Umm...

"it means one of the safer ways to browse the internet is by using IE8 on Vista or Windows 7"

I think you mean:

"it means one of the safer ways to browse the internet *using Microsoft software* is by using IE8 on Vista or Windows 7"

EC retires the Microsoft watchdog

Have they actually paid yet?

Just asking...

NASA CO₂ scan satellite launch fails

Dodgy as hell.

Maybe someone in America doesn't want people to know about all the CO2 emissions?

Obama reverses Dubya's tailpipe emissions

Its hardly a tough target.

From a BBC article

"A 2007 law required that new cars and trucks produced by 2020 obtain 35 miles per gallon of fuel."

35 mpg?! European small cars are achieving almost double that. My 1999 diesel even gets 60ish mpg.

Maybe if the American car giants imported a few efficient European engines, and started weaning Americans off this whole 6 litre engine stuff, the could make some progress.

Google Analytics crippled by autoimmune disease

@Matt - gmail for business

Why do people use GMail for business?

Because its better than most business' email systems perhaps?

Certainly better than any I've worked in - particularly for remote access.

Eh?

It Works For Me (TM).

Maybe its because they haven't set their Google account up properly.

Google AdWords: 11 herbs and spices revealed

How about from the searchers' point of view?

If I want to find a 'left handed widget spanner', isn't it better that I get served a larger variety of adverts matched to my search, if I perform the search several times?

Wouldn't that make it more likely that I'd find a company selling what I wanted than otherwise?

Yes, it costs advertisers more, but at least it means that advertisers that are low on the payment scale get some advertising space, that they wouldn't otherwise, or am I not understanding the system?

Demon ends porn-less Internet Archive block

@Kate

Ahh, but if you don't vote, *the wrong lizard might get in!*

Brit porn filter censors 13 years of net history

I'm a blocked HomeOffice customer.

So I pay over the odds for a supposedly good connection, and they start censoring random bits of the Internet. Great.

Right, What's the Reg Reader approved ADSL supplier nowadays? Zen? AA?

Microsoft smooths Windows 7 snafu

Windows 7...

http://xkcd.com/528/

Take a hammer to your hard drive, shrieks Which?

DBAN

www.dban.org

"The Government Of Canada recently awarded GEEP Ecosys a three-year National Master Standing Offer contract for the EBAN data sanitization product and its related portfolio of computer recycling, asset disposition, and data destruction services."

Should be good enough for most users then.

The key to safe driving?

You can legally use a phone and drive.

In emergencies, (i.e. someone is trying to run you off the road) you are legally allowed to use a phone while driving.

How would I do that with this device?

Why the IWF was right to ban a Wikipedia page

Eh?

"So it bans pages on which images appear, not the images themselves."

So the IWF bans the legal text and not the illegal picture? How is that in any way sensible?

Surely it would be best to ban the picture not the text?

Entire class fails IT exam by submitting in Word format

Seems straight forward to me

“Students will present their work in an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio). They will need to understand the difference between document creation and document publication and to distinguish between file formats appropriate for document creation and read-only file formats appropriate for viewing. Students will be expected to present ePortfolio content in a format appropriate for viewing at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.”

“The ePortfolio must be constructed so that its contents can be accessed using fifth generation or equivalent web browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or Netscape Navigator version 5.”

So it must be in HTML

Net pedants dismantle Quantum of Solace

@Stefan Paetow

Ever made even a short film? One that actually requires editing?

I don't know if you realise, but different shots in the same scene can be filmed days, weeks, or even years apart. It is really difficult to get all aspects of continuity right.

Try this simple example: Get 20 random small objects, and place them on a table. Get a friend to swap the position of two of them while you are not looking, then return after a few minutes and try and name the objects moved.

Repeat 1000 times with different objects without errors.

If you can do this, Congratulations! You should try making a film.

AVG slaps Trojan label on core Windows file

Some might argue...

that windows is a virus, so this would be correct behavior...

Oz pub dishes up really crap ice cream

Seesh!

A simple DNA test ought to be able to sort this out. Why all this nonsense and threat of lawsuits?

Boffins conclude machines still not quite people

Why is El Reg linking to Captain Cyborg's website?!

The shame!

OpenOffice.org overwhelmed by demand for version 3.0

Bah!

Only Intel MacOSX support.

That's no good!

Channel 4 in Heathrow Playmobil reconstruction shocker

Both Ch4 and El Reg are late on this one.

Lego representation of news events was alive in the 14th Century!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WysEoApJQqw

Serial troll bitchslaps Reg hack

Humpf.

You'd be scared of databases too, the way they loose personal information in this country!

Hawaiian anti-LHC lawsuit thrown out

Micro black hole falling to the centre of the earth...

Someone has been reading too much David Brin.

Superfluid leak downs LHC for months

That would be great on my CV:

Skills: Proton Botherer

Gov seeks UK nuclear competition for EDF

Build them already!

Personally, I'm rather tired of passing money to Russia in exchange for gas.

These pebble bed reactors look pretty safe. Can we have some of them, please?

Reg readers rage at comment icon outrage

Meh

I'd like a Meh icon

The Google-isation of all the net's access points

If it's really open source as promised...

... It can only be a good thing. They seem to have some nifty new ideas, and that can only help bring innovation to the browser market.

If they are smart, they will continue to donate to Mozilla to avoid future anti trust issues.

I just hope Chrome renders similarly to Firefox (i.e. standards compliant), so I don't have the pain of developing on another non standard browser like IE.

Anatomy of a malware scam

Easiest Social Malware detector

This sort of malware is probably the best reason I've heard for changing the colour of your window frames. Even a slight colour change, possibly combined with custom icons, would make these 'system windows' stand out a mile.

Of course, they also stand out on Linux...

Driving some value into Google's Street View

@Flatspot

"Someone has to be paid to produce maps"

Err, did you read the article? Open Street Map are doing it for nothing. And you can use the data for nothing.

Some enlightened companies (mostly haulage firms) are giving their data to OSM. AND, Automotive Navigation Data (http://www.and.com/), donated the entire streetmap of the Netherlands as well as road networks for China and India.

It really doesn't have to cost...

C&W closes in on Thus acquisition

Argh!

Time to switch ISPs. No way do I want to use Clueless & Witless.

Can anyone suggest a good ISP that won't read my emails and monitor everything I do?

AVG fake traffic spares Google AdWords

Ah, so that's where my bandwidth has gone.

I host a small club website on my home server on the end of an ADSL line. I had wondered why my ADSL line suddenly appeared to be slowing, now I know.

The scanner was systematically downloading all the branch newsletter PDFs for the last 5 years. All 150 Mbytes of them. Thanks AVG.

EC's 'Steelie' Neelie snubs Microsoft Office

That fine...

Has Microsoft actually paid yet?

A quarter of UK adults to go on child protection database

@RichardB

> "Surely you must be on the list to be an active parent - or indeed a sibling, cousin, aunt or even a godparent?"

Well, 90% of child abuse is performed by relatives...

"I'm sorry sir, we can't let you breed because your mother in law's brother's son looked at a child "funny" once."

UK electricity crisis over - for now

Coincidence?

While I was reading this, we had a five second brown out...

Didn't affect the laptop or UPSed server, mind you.

Microsoft appeals record European Commission fine

Silly buggers.

What with the steep climb of the Euro against the Dollar, I bet MS are wishing they had paid the fine the first time around...

Mag-lev flywheel UPS firm says shipments speeding up

Don't bash the case while its on!

If the maglev bearings fail, you are going to have a pretty sizable explosion on your hands. At least batteries have some internal resistance when shorted. This would give up all its energy in one loud bang.

Why I downgraded from Vista to XP

Or, instead of shelling out more money to M$

Install Ubuntu instead.

It really is quite incredible that the “solution” to the problem of crap software from Microsoft is to give them more money installing yet more crap software from Microsoft.

Seesh.

Tories call for big changes to cybercrime offences

Banks should bloody sign their emails!

Its not as if banks lack cryptographic hardware and software. If they signed their emails, it would be a hell of a lot easier to put off the phishers.

Of course, they are far to busy earning multi billion pound profits to spend money on security. I mean, look at how they went for the cheap Chip and Pin option that didn't have a way for the cards to verify the readers and encrypt the connection to the bank. Oh look, there is now fake readers doing the rounds...

GAAAH!

IPv6 roots planted on the net

Asking for IPv6

"Many ISPs haven't implemented IPv6 for a very simple reason - customers haven't asked for it yet," said Dave Freedman

I've been asking Demon for IPv6 since before 2003. No joy there. Its apparently "Being Planned".

Scottish Government to block wind farm plan

Stupid buggers.

RSPB says it might harm the bird population a bit. Well, I wonder what will happen when the Norfolk broads are flooded by the sea rising.

Oh, and they might "spoil the natural environment". A damn sight less than global warming will change the world's environment if we don't start building some renewable power systems.

Microsoft folds-in Multimap for '$50m'

Shameless plug

www.openstreetmap.org

It may not be perfect, or do routes (yet, we're working on it!), but its open source, and free to use in print or on commercial web pages, unlike Google, MS et al.

And if you have a GPS, feel free to help out!

'Beer Hunter' lifts 40,000 pints of Guinness

Its the metal, stupid!

The kegs will be made of valuable aluminum. I suspect the beer will be poured down the drain.

Google Maps Mobile knows where you are

Pity mobile data is so expensive

This might be useful apart from the fantastic price that operators charge for mobile data. Download a few maps, and suddenly you have another £50 on your bill.

Google opens Maps for editing

Google not first shocker!

There is already an editable map on the Internet.

http://www.openstreetmap.org