Posts by wobbly1

Windows XP SP3 leaps into the tubes

Thank Paris I didn't have autoupdate turned on...

current sp3 gets picked up by my XP MCE machine (both versions knacker the programme guide in the tv app.) Currently the yellow shield of uninstalled updates sits reproaching me in the sys tray.

Oh how glad Iv'e paid good money over the years for software that can't reach the standard of function of my "beardie wierdie free like beer, less routine maintenance than my toenails, more secure than a nun's chuff, threat to lazy self-serving capitalism like Microsoft" Ubuntu box.

I am down to 2 critical applications left in Microshafts's camp that whine under Wine or have no OS equivalents...

Ubuntu man Shuttleworth dissects Hardy Heron's arrival

Why install Ubuntu alongside windows?

After the content of the rival Zealot's posts have been discarded, the answer maybe simple. Installing ANYTHING new can lead trouble. and without having ot get hands dirty with virtualistation or BIOS editing, a person wanting to find if Ubuntu A) can cope with their hardware ( a friend with a 3 year old cube has huge trouble with graphics under Ubuntu GG) and B) suits them.

The familiarity of Ubutnu has allowed me to install it on gash laptops and pass them on to people where the op sys (usually win '98) is too clunky and insecure to be left on them. By getting people ot use Open office and Fireowrks on windows first, migration is a snip.

Support inquiries from those using Ubuntu have tended to be application specific.

for some people it's not suitable. Where they "must" have a windows program and Wine whines at it.

I have Ubuntu HH Beta ( with regular updates) on one desktop here, and windows and embedded Linux in the others, If the Ubuntu box can't reach the network i check the router, any other machine i check the machine itself. The Ubuntu box is entirely untroublesome. Many can and should be replaced by file compitable open source programs. (I've stopped paying a tithe to Adobe switching from actionscript to python for app writing).

Paris, because despite programming and using computers since '66 ( a Gross mechanical adding machine) the fierce inter-faith battles that go on between the followers of the one true Bill and the manic hordes of Linus Bluetooth the Viking., leaves me feel like a hand wringing vapid halfwit on the side lines...

Quantum computing firm D-Wave bags $17m more in funding

@Lou Gosselin and @andreyvul

As Lou asserts the author is not right in his understanding and andreyvul asserts he may not be wrong is the author in deed a qbit representing both right and wrong simultaneously... Or is schroedinger's cat let out out of the box??? I'll get me coat....

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

Wot no Ubuntu?

for it or agin it, it made some waves this year

Windows random number generator is so not random

@Anonymous Coward

Gosh to have had the benefits of your perspicacity then!

We of course foolishly concluded that a function with a numeric output described as "random" would produce a "random" number. During development we discovered our numbskull mistake.

Manuals... Luxury! This was during the first months of the PET being in the country before the sales push , i worked for one of the first dealers , we had two machines , we didn't have the manuals, we had a folder of photocopy sheets, some missing some illegible.

Nigel, (For it was he), came in one morning with the -ti workround. whether he had spent half a weeks wages telephoning the States (where the manuals where available ) or had divine inspiration is dimmed with mists of time...

Bill Gates is an old lag on this one

Following the recent article on the pet 2001. We noticed this problem with the rnd generator in basic. we developed a work round; seed the random generator with -ti. The negated time value was a relatively random seed. so running the same code sequentially would get a different value from the rnd function each time.

Nearly 30 feckin' years and Microsoft STILL haven't fixed it.

Remembering the Commodore PET 2001

The first time i knowingly used a microsoft product....

I worked for one of the first UK Commodore dealers before the ad. campaign started,so spent about 3 months with a pair of pet 2001's, The earliest models had the equivalent of bonnet stay , so you could prop the top up while you worked on it . Chip creep was a frequent problem on the few socketed components...

The machinations of the demon Gates could be revealed by typing "wait 6502,0" and the screen filled Yahoo! Style! with "microsoft!" 6502 being the cpu designation.

AS a dyslexic with a 4 chr corrupting buffer , being able to enter BASIC instructions by typing the first 2 chrs of the instruction and shifting the second character, gave me a way in to programming.

Get started with Silverlight

Still not convinced

it's worth dumping the intellectual investment in actionscript/flash. Where is the killer feature or is that still "coming soon"? If the highly available high speed hosting stays free, maybe, but watch Balmer monetize that...

Mandriva bigwig (nearly) accuses Ballmer of b-word

@ anonymouse coward "poor sods"

As Sir Humphrey would say; "That's a courageous statement!" The western world runs windows (on desktops and laptops, almost true), however on low computing power devices (as these systems are ) it is a very different story, without unix/linux, routers are a set of pretty LEDs , your mp3 player turns into a paper-weight....

on Desktops laptops. the op sys is by and large a program launcher, running firefox and open office and supporting users with those packages , makes op sys agnosticism an easier and realistic option. the problems are by and large bad writing by web designers either accidentally or by design, eg unnecessary ie only features, or importing closed standards documents from microshaft's tubby and unwieldy office.

Bike bonk bloke lands on sex offenders' register

Was the bike...

... under-age? Not sure what the age of consent is for a bicycle, and did he wear an inner-tube?

I'll get...

Ubuntu's latest OS not so Gutsy

easeir and cleaner install than xp...

xp became unworkable (again) on one of my boxes . an ancient asrock board. compared to an sp2 install on xp it was a dream, faster, and less intervention, and no demand for driver disks after install i have had no trouble with net access. Frankly my HP 1220 all in one is more of a pain in the arse to install.

Beeb news website goes titsup

shoot the puppies?

Yesterday the BBC announced an unbelievable 2.5- 3.5 Billion squids shortfall. then they where threatening to shoot the puppies that are the one o'clock news and (GASP!) Top Gear. Today their most popular platform, the news website. Not very sophisticated tactics for the salaries they're getting. How about their dropping the crap lifestyle programmes to make up their shortfall?

BT opens wallet for Brightview

how the flip...

does this sit with notion of competition in the market place? How do you avoid British telehell if you live away from the cable network? >:(

Google slapped with libel claim

At the risk of creating...

an infinite regression, isn't Brian Retkin as Guilty as Goggle for commenting on it? if he hadn't bought the action against Google, in essence , he is presenting google's action who are '...presenting these third-party sites to the world. The sites they're linking to are completely obscure. You wouldn't find them if Google didn't link to them.". If Retkin sues himself, will he disappear in a puff of judicial smoke?