Posts by Pig Dog Bay

What did the VisiCalc fairy bring you for Spreadsheet Day?

VU-Calc ZX Spectrum here

Unix is dead. Long live Unix!

Re: Microsoft Defender ASR snafu.

Pipe | down.

The Return of Gopher: Pre-web hypertext service is still around

Yearling - BBC?

Way back in the 90's I remember someone called Yearling at the BBC hosting some interesting pages. They mostly talked about TV programmes and on occasion alien conspiracy theories, great stuff. I can't recall if the pages were Gopher, Lynx or early HTTP.

Did anyone else come across this site?

Smash-hit game Fortnite is dangerous... for cheaters: Tools found laced with malware

Re: Can't feel too upset about this

>*returns to crossword puzzle*

Hey stop using that Crossword Solver app to cheat!

App devs bewildered by last-minute Google GDPR klaxon

Wait and See

I have several ad supported apps and paid versions without ads. So the options menu idea here would work for these. However I have an iOS app where you can remove ads with an In App Purchase, so it looks like I will have to create an ad free version of the app to satisfy consent option 3. I decided to use IAP purchases for the iOS app as Apple recommends this instead of separate lite/pro versions of an app.

This is quite obviously a mess, even Google hasn't got a grip on it yet judging by the GDPR emails I been sent as mentioned in the article. Will 1000's of app developers, come the end of May, start receiving fines in the post? Will the app stores start removing non GDPR compliant apps? Will users start sending me emails demanding I should have asked their consent before they used my apps? I doubt it but will wait and see, and then act.

Programmers! Close the StackOverflow tabs. This AI robot will write your source code for you

Java low hanging fruit

So this is just a tool that automatically inserts standard boiler plate, such as the ridiculous number of lines of code to read a bloody text file into a string.

Most programmers will already have their own bag of tools for this and new programmers will do well to build their own.

US border cops told to stop copying people's files just for the hell of it

1. What do they use to copy things?

My guess would be direct WiFi to WiFi file copy. They would need to install an app on the 'suspects' device and then that would transfer files directly to an Agents device over a direct WiFi link.

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Y2K For Real This Time!

This is quite a big story as when the updates eventually get rolled out we will see significant drop in computer resource availability. I expect to see

- Websites / services becoming slow or going offline

- Lower productivity, workers waiting even longer as their computer grinds away

- Increased business cost to cover the loss of computer resource

- When the embargo is lifted and details of the bug become known, there will be a slew of new malware, especially targeting those who refuse to update

-Big jump in AMD shares price and a crash in Intel's

-But no SEC insider dealing investigation into why the Intel CEO sold his shares before Christmas

Microsoft's .NET-mare for developers: ASP.NET Core 2.0 won't work on Windows-only .NET

Microsoft Everywhere Strategy

The old strategy of Windows first is dead, hence why Windows Mobile/Phone were ditched. Microsoft sees the OS no more than a dumb software layer, its the apps that run on the OS that matter.

So the new strategy is Windows Apps Everywhere, run Office on Android and iOS and MacOS, why waste money developing and supporting expensive new windows platforms? MS also has the ultimate app store, Azure, as someone has commented above, a significant portion of websites now run on Azure.

So it is not surprising that they are creating more portable and less Windows centric version of ASP .Net.

PlayStation 4 probs: Gamers struggle with PSVR headset blackouts

PS4 Pro

Another black mark against the PS4 Pro.

Here's me with my lowly PS4 thinking I will be the underclass of the PS world with all the good Pro folk with their la-de-dah flashier games, pitying us fools. No, I pity thee!

I would have preferred a shorter cycle for a console refresh, say 5 years, but this slightly 'upgraded' version is silly.

Software can be more secure, says NIST, and we think we know how

Standards

This XKCD springs to mind

https://xkcd.com/927/

Chap creates Slack client for Commodore 64

Mutiny

I wonder if he was inspired by the show Halt Catch Fire, where the company Mutiny whose business started out as online gaming on the C64, branched out to online chat and then kind of a craigslist.

Pint icon - have two if you can get it run on the Speccy :)

R3 four flew: What's driving banks to flee blockchain consortium?

Its a trap

We still don't know who invented Bitcoin, the only clue is the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, which is most likely a pseudonym.

<hat material="tinfoil">

Bitcoin Its a trap by GS, the vampire squid on the face of humanity. The R3 consortium was designed to muddy the waters, procrastinate and stifle any competing blockchains.

The blockchain remembers all transactions, don't think you are safe!

</hat>

It's outta my system now, promise!

Nintendo to investors: Pokémon Go won't make money come

Nintendo wants to buy back its shares?

So Nintendo own 32% of Niantic, which means Nintendo will receive 32% of the profits as dividends from PoGo, so Nintendo will make more money.

Nintendo shares have doubled but since this announcement have fallen by 17%, me wonders that Nintendo has missed the boat and wants to by its shares cheap to keep all that nice PoGo dividends?

Compatibility before purity: Microsoft tweaks .NET Core again

Re: Dogs breakfast

And it has aqueducts!

Bloaty banking app? There's a good chance it was written in Britain

COBOL Legacy

Britain was a pioneer of computing and so we have built up a lot of legacy systems over the decades, this is why COBOL is still very prevalent. Johnny Come-Lately's can make a clean start with the technology of the day and write more concise code with more detailed requirements.

Google tries to run from flailing robotics arm

Good

I was never impressed by BD and their noisy lump of metal, Big Track from the 80s was more useful!

DeepMind is what Google should be concentrating on, artificial general intelligence will be a game changer, dwarfing any daft prancing robots

Microsoft: Ditch your phone biz and do crazy hardware experiments

Sunken Cost Fallacy

This is what I like about the reg, I looked it up and learnt something new about economics. I can now sound clever in meetings about projects that refuse to die but won't because too much money has been invested :)

'Boss, I've got a bug fix: Nuke the whole thing from orbit, rewrite it all'

Beastly, Just Beastly

Goto's are evil, only bone idle spaghetti loving coders use them. Relying on compiler tricks is a dangerous game, compilers change, code gets ported, 'nuanced' techniques can get lost.

Code should not be clever, it should be maintainable and easy to read.

Windows Phone devs earn double what poor Android devs pocket

BS

There's very little money to be made in apps in my experience, where on earth do these average earnings per month come from? Please let me know, I must be missing out!

These days I write apps for other people, like the adage about Gold Rushes, better to sell the picks and shovels.

Nearly a million retail jobs will be destroyed by the march of tech, warns trade body

PC World / Currys - Hell on earth, try to pay for goods and they sit you down and hard sell you insurance;

"...

Me: For the 10th time, I don't want transportation insurance!

Them: What if you're new TV is damaged when getting it home in your car?

Me: I'll just bring it back and say it was already broken and demand my money back.

..."

The last time I ever went in, was to pick up my Nexus 7 back in 2012:

"Hiya mate! You wouldn't believe the deal we've got on Norton Antivirus.."

15 minutes later I'm yelling f**k off to them and just give me my bloody tablet.

Utter chunts, good riddance if they go under

Bank fail: Ready or not, here's our new software

Re: I found a fault with Nationwide.

Same with the BBC's online mortgage calculator. There's an easy mistake to make in the formula and I too had made the same mistake in my mortgage calculator app (my first practice app). Annoyingly I used the BBC's calculator to check mine! Luckily I noticed my own mortgage payments didn't tally so I eventually found the bug!

Ready for a nostalgia kick? Usborne has put its old computer books on the web for free

>My copy of ZX Machine Code dates back to when the author was Tony, complete with a 'nothing stays the same' teaser comment.

The intrigue deepens, so Toni B did a Sophie W?

30 years of is it he or she and now this!

Machine Code For Beginners

I remember finding this little gem in my school library and it completely demystified Z80 programming for me. It explained in its jokey fun way, binary, two's compliment, registers and the stack which as a young kid seemed quite difficult concepts.

Does any remember a book, ZX Machine Code by Toni Baker, it had a great draughts program but I never understood the floating point chapter?

AdBlock Plus, websites draft peace deal so ads can bypass blockade

Re: "Have a look at www.gotati.com"

>One line comments are useless.

Neon

Er, what sort of Docker experience were you expecting?

What Tis It?

What is this Docker that you speak about? And this Devops malarky!

It's like Al Qeida or ISIS just popping up from nowhere.

Learn you Func Prog on five minute quick!

Re: >Real programmers, (like me),

>>There's OO and OO.

Learning design patterns is when I finally understood OO and its power. Textbooks spend too much time explaining inheritance which in most cases should be avoided.

Re: Well, obviously ...

"..When I first encountered OO in a C++ class, I'd only written Fortran and BASIC. I started off thinking of Objects as structures with functions built in, and the rest was straightforward.."

That is what I did for an embedded C program when I was pining for objects. Also C header files can be used as interfaces. OO is basically a set of rules applied to structs and function pointers.

Work from home when the next big Windows 10 installation arrives

360?

Anyone know if Win10 is coming to the 360? It will give me a good chance to try it out.

Canonical rolls out Ubuntu container management for suits

+1 RoboCop

Clicked on this because of the RoboCop piccy

GCHQ to pore over blueprints of Chinese built Brit nuke plants

Re: "selling property overseas to invest in its own future."

Cui Bono

Now write it out 100 times or I'll cut your balls off.

Microsoft and Google ink SECRET TREATY to end all their patent wars

M.A.D.

Looks like Google's acquisition of Motorola for its patents has paid off, Google is now a fully paid up member of the Patent Nuke Club

'Steve Jobs filmmakers opportunistic? Apple, you've got a factory of children making phones'

Mr Robot

'Apple, you've got a factory of children making phones'

Isn't this a quote from Mr Robot?

Shadow of the Beast: Amiga classic returns from the darkness

Lucky trench diggers

The only time I played on an Amiga was when I went round my mates house, a mate whose dad bought him everything. I had to go home and play Rastan Saga on me speccy

git commit -m 'Add $200m to GitHub, tweak valuation to $2bn'

Re: Disturbing

Recently moved to Github from Google Code, I hope with this new investment they don't 'improve' the site.

Spaghetti Code

Nice picture of spaghetti C++, loops within loops!

The insidious danger of the lone wolf control freak sysadmin

Tim?

As Chubby said "Its me! I'm the c*nt!"

A first look at Google’s Android Studio 1.0: Climbing out of the Eclipse kitchen sink

Eclipse isn't that bad, it has nice features such as hovering the mouse over errors and selecting a fix. I got burned with my earlier try with AS, gradle still conjures painful memories as I struggled to reference library projects.

Apple: We'll tailor Swift to be a fast new programming language

C#+Thesauraus

Quick guide to Swift for C# programmer:

this...self

interface...protocol

var...let

Thumbs up as anything is better than Objective C

Micro Men: The story of the syntax era

One slight adjustment tho

If I were to make one adjustment to poignant end scene, I'd have a huge spaceship flying over the juggernauts, showing the ARM logo.

Microsoft braces for Surface RT feedback storm

This story must be warming a few cockles of the hearts of most folks. Yesterdays story about IBM and OS/2 being crushed by Microsoft makes for a great contrast to today's state of play.

Nokia Lumia 820 WinPho 8 review

Re: Lower Dev Subscription Costs

Hi AC, I'd write them in C# and Silverlight. What worries me is the App framework API and lifecycle management differing between the 2 versions of OS. Android in IMHO does a good job with keeping compatibility between flavours.

Lower Dev Subscription Costs

The review mentions the lack of improvement of the Windows Store one year on from the last review. I'd love to port my Android apps to Win Pho 7 & 8 but I'm not prepared to pay the $100 yearly subscription. Also are apps able to run on both 7 & 8?

Searching for crossword solver apps on Windows Store reveals less than 10 apps, and they're very poor compared to the many Android crossword solver apps. Admittedly this lack of competition means I may be able to place my apps on to Windows Store and even have the gall to charge for them.

*ahem* CleverDic *ahem* 'cuse the plug!