Posts by John

More gnashing of teeth after Microsoft update brings PCs to a standstill

The general plan is.....

.....to slow everyones PC's down. Every update and my XP box gets slower, there is now a random 30 second wait on after I login where the PC does nothing before its innards get busy. This is pure conjecture, but I think that one in every few "security" updates actually tells the CPU to miss a cycle in every 1000 or so.

Gradually people will come to realise that their PC isn't the mutts nuts they thought it was 2 years ago and go for new one, scratching Intels back, and actually selling copies of Vista.

Conversely, when I'm booted into Linux, where I do my actual work (XP is for Fifa and GTA), the latest updates in the scheduling system in the kernel actually make my PC run faster!!

MS and Turbolinux ink patent, single sign-on deal

another one bites the dust

It's a shame that yet another small Linux distro has shat its pants and got into bed with M$. I guess they didn't have the backbone to support the community "put up or shut up" calls to Balmer et al.

I can't see anyone in the Linux community downloading TurboLinux now, they'd better hope they have a strong business base. It's such a shame that these shady deals are happening, I used to really like SuSE.

Technology is root of all evil, says IMF

Lets take this seriously.....

.....and all promise not to buy Vista until Sudan has the GDP of Japan

PC World feels the Vista pinch (again)

PC world morons

A long long time ago I went into PC world and was looking at a PC. The sales rep started telling me about the specs and I asked him

"whats the cache on the processor?"

to which he replied

"We don't sell processors separately"

PC world is run by morons who employ idiots to sell crap to the uninformed masses, so it does do quite well.

Pentagon in orbital solar power plan for world peace

good idea

Nice to see that there is some sensible thinking down one corridor of the pentagon, but as they say, they will need "a cooperative international regime", which I'm guessing they'll be outsourcing to the rest of the building.

Airbus delivers first A380

Check in - 4 hours

These monster planes are going to be horrible. It's going to take soooooo long to get everyone on and off them and through passport control at either end. I haven't got the money for a "wank" cabin, so I'll be in the the sardines and waiting hours after landing to get off and join a queue that will take hours to get through.

After months of denial, Microsoft cops to IE vulnerability

Why are people still using IE??

If you are reading this post using IE5/6/7 then your computer is at serious risk. You are maybe 3 clicks away from your PC being enslaved in a botnet. Go to www.getfirefox.com and install.

MS drops nagware validation for IE7 installs

IE logs and M$ lies

Sure, firefox is better than IE6/7 for many many reasons, the main reason I dislike IE is the way it logs EVERY website you ever visit in a hidden file on your PC. Even if you delete your history from IE - every website you visit is logged.

Have a look at c:\Documents and Settings\YOU\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat

Beware, your windoze computer will not acknowledge the existence of this directory!! All M$ products systematically lie to you about the content of your hard disk. You should be able to copy this file over to somewhere, or open it in your favorite text editor app. After you are shocked by the content of this file, you will be even more shocked to find that the only way to delete it is to reboot into safe mode with command prompt (and then you find that dos is in on the lie as well).

To view what is really on your hard disk download www.cygwin.com and learn some unix.

Novell punts world's most expensive Linux distro

just download it

Here is Suse 10.2, straight from the suse website:

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/iso/dvd/openSUSE-10.2-GM-DVD-i386.iso

install it, then upgrade via YaST to 10.3.

or give it a few days and 10.3 will be there.

Beware, SuSE is in bed with Microsoft.

Microsoft-loving (former) security czar calls for closed internet

Software without bugs!!!

...From Microsoft !!!!!

Spoken by a man who has clearly never written a line of code in his life

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Has M$ had their peak??

The poor vista sales are due to the fact that vista is a pig, difficult to use and doesn't play well with others. Despite it vast flaws, XP is good enough for most people and most people see no reason to switch.

The M$ golden age has been and gone, it's all downhill from here on in. XP will be the best product they ever produce. How long until the next OS? 10 years? Bet it will be even more of a pig than vista. I give M$ another 20 years before they fold.

What's 77.1 x 850? Don't ask Excel 2007

Open Office

In open office 77.1*850 = 65535.

Glad I moved over to OO a few years back.

Microsoft: New Live Search 'as good as Google'

Quantum jump

"Overall, we feel we've made a quantum jump on our core relevance," Nadella said.

It really irritates me when marketing people use the word "quantum", Nadella has probably never even seen the Schroedinger equation!!

A true quantum jump would involve a quantum computer performing your search on everything in the database in parallel with the wavefunction collapsing on the correct answer(s). I somehow doubt M$ has done this.

Zombies flood broadband networks

The blame lies with Microsoft

When I was on telewest broadband in Bristol, I was attacked about 30 times an hour from zombie pc's trying to infect me. The internet is crawling with them.

The drain on bandwidth from all the spam and DoS attacks is seriously reducing the bandwidth left for regular internet use by you and I. The blame lies squarely with Microsoft for selling (forcing upon us) OS's which are so easy to enslave my grandmother could do it.

The ISP's should group together and sue Microsoft for releasing OS's in which a major "feature" is slavery and the consumption of x% of bandwidth. How much money has been spent on high bandwidth cables, surely the investors are entitled to some of their money back.

PC superstore unhinged by Linux

I got my 1st copy of Linux from PC world

Back in the old days of 56k dial up in 1999 I bought my first copy of SUSE Linux 6.1 from PC world!! Last time I was in there you could still buy various Linux's in their boxes.

At my work (Particle physics) all high performance computing is done on Linux. Ask IBM what they run on their supercomputers?

At home I have, amongst others, an old AMD 800 MHz which takes 10 minutes to boot XP, want to open word - you might as well put the kettle on. Running Linux it is fast and reliable and will probably go and go for years yet.

Sure, Vista needs a BMW engine to crawl along at 30 mph, if so then Linux is a Ferrari. My old AMD box is a write off in XP, but in Linux its a reliable runner that will get you from A to B without breaking down and you won't get car-jacked in the process.

Managing Software Complexity with Virtual Chapters

cvs??

I thought that this problem was solved years ago with CVS

Russia plans 2025 Moonbase, 2035 Mars shot

Helium 3

Forget what you read on wikipedia about helium 3 fusion. For some things the wikipedia is good, for speculative physics it is a place for any nutter to spout his or her crackpot theory.

The fact is that the helium 3 - deuterium reaction is ~100 times slower than deuterium - tritium. If you leave the tritium out of the tokomak then two deuterium nuclei fuse together (again with a higher rate than deuterium - helium 3) to make tritium and a proton. Thus you end up with a deuterium - tritium reaction.

Helium 3 fusion is the stuff of sci-fi books and crackpot wikipedia articles, there is no sound nuclear physics involved.

Free software campaigners stonewalled at BBC

BBC Linux support

I have been having a look at the bbc iPlayer website and installing it on xp.

The BBC annoyingly makes you use internet explorer, yet more lock in - no one seems to be pissed at this. I am. It means that damn url cache will be filling up again (c:\Documents and settings\you\local settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat) and you can't delete it without booting into safe made with command prompt. If you can't see it, thats because M$ systematically lies to you about what is on your hard disk. Look hard, its there, it contains every website you have been to even if you delete your browsing history from ie.

Anyway, the BBC says at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/getting_started/your_computer.shtml

that:

"GNU/Linux operating system can use the Crossover plug-in to play Windows Media files. For more information about this contact your GNU/Linux supplier or source."

So, as soon as I've downloaded a programme, I'm booting into Linux (which is my day-to-day work enviroment) and checking it out.

....till then...

PC buyers: 'Vista Capable' machines weren't Vista capable

Windows sticker

The sticker on my laptop box said

"Runs MS windows XP or better"

....So I installed Linux

BBC Trust backs calls for Linux iPlayer

DRM will not work on Linux

There is no way that DRM will work on Linux. The two are fundamentally incompatible.

It's very nice that the BBC is going make the iPlayer eventually work on Linux, however when this happens only a subset of programmes will be available as the programme makers will not trust the Linux community. (Linux not being part of the "Trusted Computing" framework).

Simple facts. Release programmes in XP/Vista/Mac format and the copyright will be safe. Release to the Linux community and the programmes will be on BitTorrent within minutes.

Personally, I still have a VHS recorder and am happy to set the timer.

'al-Qaeda' puts on big shoes, red nose, takes custard pie

Incompetence to buy a parking ticket as well

To add to the ineptitude of our would be attackers, lets not forget that the 2nd car was towed away for being parked illegally and it wasn't until the car was at the depot that the "bomb" was found. I'm sure the parking meter wasn't very far away and it would only have cost a couple of quid.