Posts by benjymous

Right-click opens up terrifying vistas of reality and Windows 95 user's frightful position therein

And on discovering that nobody would ever empty their precious recycling bin, that user then proceeded to use it to store all of their important documents (you know, all those reports that would be *recycled* next year with the new figures)

Soz fanbois, Apple DIDN'T invent the smartphone after all

Yet you posted the same story just over an hour ago with the exact opposite conclusion

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/09/fake_history_sorry_bbc_but_apple_really_did_invent_the_iphone/

iPhones cure cancer!

iPhones cause cancer!

just eat one iPhone every day to cure alzheimer's!

Integrator fired chap for hiding drugs conviction, told to pay compo for violating his rights

I'm stuck with the image of having to fire someone "under come circumstances"

Clive Sinclair Vega+ tin-rattle hits £300,000

Re: Upon seeing the screenshot...

Here you go, play it in your browser:

https://archive.org/details/zx_Contact_Sam_Cruise_1986_Microsphere

Tough Banana Pi: a Raspberry Pi for colour-blind diehards

Colourblind

Is the complaints about it being "for the colourblind" followed by a complaint about the "green" background (when it's clearly yellow in the screenshots) some sort of attempt at irony?

Right, suits off: Windows 10 preview Internet Explorer is here

Oddly, it isn't actually even the newest version of IE11 - the one I have installed here is 11.0.8 whereas the latest version is 11.0.11 (last time I checked)

Oh God the RUBBER on my SHAFT has gone wrong and is STICKING to things

The thumbsticks on Playstation2 controllers are coated with the same substance, as I discovered when I pulled my old console out of the cupboard.

I also used to have an Amstrad PenPad (very early touchscreen PDA that I got in a bargain bin in Tandy) - years later I dug that out and found the entire surface had turned into this evil unstoppable glue,

So this stuff has been in use on gadgets since at least the mid 90s - why it's still being used is beyond me!

Android antivirus apps CAN'T kill nasties on sight like normal AV - and that's Google's fault

Presumably if you give the AV apps the ability to force uninstall other malicious apps, then you're basically also giving malicious apps the ability to force uninstall anything else

if( user has installed an AV app )

{

force uninstall AV app

display generic looking "Sorry, App not compatible with your device" message

}

Java updates too much of a bother? Maybe online banking's just not for you

Re: Headline v2.0

That's not the issue - the Java is a trojan keylogger that phones home when you use internet banking - the internet bank doesn't (and surely isn't) need to be java related itself

AMD to decimate workforce several times over?

Re: a rare sight these days...

But does the first definition just exist because the term has been used wrongly for so long that the wrong definition has ended up being accepted?

Re: a rare sight these days...

Except it's not - quite, anyway- if you decimated several times over then you'd fire one in ten, then fire one in ten of those who survived, then fire one in ten of those who'd survived twice. (You'd end up firing 27 out of 100, over the three rounds, if my maths is correct)

That's not quite the same as just firing 30% (It would certainly be more harrowing for the staff!)

Warner Music daddy chucks €130m at Spotify rival Deezer

It's also worth noting that anyone with an Orange Panther phone contract can get Deezer mobile as one of their swappables - that gives you totally free streaming (it doesn't even use your data allowance) on your phone, which is a pretty good deal!

Apple threatens to ruin peace worldwide with voice-controlled iMacs

Macs have had voice control for years. A friend at uni smugly demonstrated it on his, but quickly turned it off when we realised we could stand outside and shout "SHUTDOWN! YES!" (responding to the "Are you sure?") prompt.

Chick-lit star snubs Menshn.com password flaw alert

Re: "Passwords are encrypted: HTTPS"

Yeah, it's garbage. It's like your bank claiming their deposit boxes are safe, because they use an armoured car for their deliveries.

Markets to remain glutted with rapidly-depreciating Facebook shares

And they're all inconsiderately taking a day off work today, so I can't watch the continued slide.

Reagan slams webmail providers for liberal bias

"When you sign up for a Reagan.com email address, the company "will not copy, scan, or sell a single word of your email content," its website says"

but then

"How do you handle spam?

We have spam filters in place in addition to each user being able to set their own spam settings. A user can choose to set a spam blocker for a particular sender or an entire domain name. A user can also flag individual emails as spam to help the system learn which emails the user recognizes as spam. The flagged for being spam will then be put into a separate folder for the user."

[ http://www.reagan.com/t/faq ]

So their spam filter *will* be scanning *every single* word of your email.

Or do they have some magical form of anti-spam that works without looking at the mail?

Sacrebleu! Googleplex insists Bush is still le président américain

It's just because Google Translate has a "suggest a better translation" option - enough people must've corrected badly translated stories about Bush that it's decided that this is the best translation.

Can neighbours grab your sensitive package, asks Post Office

Problem is

..if for some reason you don't trust your neighbours, do you really want to display a "I don't trust my neighbours" sign, in case they take it personally?

New gov.uk site hits beta, flashes SINGLE typeface to punters

The navigation buttons at the bottom have a mind of their own on Chrome - they run away and hide off the bottom of the page.

Jolly rogered

Probably also an apocryphal tale, but I'm sure I remember reading about a porn blocking scheme that tried to block images based on the amount of skin tone it found in images.

All this meant was you couldn't view photos of pigs, but the porn went through fine as long as their skin colour wasn't "pink"

Aha, here it is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8094026.stm

Web hosting

Re: Web hosting

I'd add my +1 for bytemark - they really are awesome guys

Linux 'internet of things' gizmo ships

Re: Too expensive.

They have said they plan to look into supporting the Pi as a hardware platform.

They're currently based off the beaglebone, which costs ~£60, so basically you're paying £60 for the beaglebone, plus £40 for their custom hardware interface board, the 3d printed case, and access to their cloud server

Orange 3G data network goes titsup

Re: Nothing Nowhere.

Working fine for me in Cambridge

It's working fine for me in Cambridge. My wife is reporting no data down in Exeter.

Hey Commentard! - or is that Commenter?

deja vu

That story gives me a weird sense of deja vu for some reason.

That story gives me a weird sense of deja vu for some reason.

That story gives me a weird sense of deja vu.

TV Guide UK

Agreed

I discovered this app over Christmas too - it made finding something to watch much easier than slowly navigating clunky EPGs

K-9

Just use Titanium Backup

If you're the sort of power user who'd consider K-9 mail, then you've probably already rooted your phone anyway - Titanium Backup will do a great job of backing up all your mail settings and restoring them onto a new phone / rom.

Sony Ericsson signals inbound Android 2.3.4

Hmm

* Picks up Sony Ericsson X10 mini

* checks Android version

* 2.3.5 - ok, never mind

* puts phone down again

(GingerDX based on MiniCM7, if anyone's wondering - feels like a whole new phone compared to the official S.E. firmware)

dabs.com says sorry for delivery debacle

utter shambles

I've been stuck in order failure hell with dabs for most of the month - Placed an order on Thursday when all the items were in stock, expecting a monday delivery, as promised. Monday came and went, and no delivery - their site still said "Processing". I ended up cancelling the order and buying from Scan (who got the delivery to me by 10am the next day)

But it doesn't end there - a week later, I got a dispatch email, despite having cancelled the order. I was told that was just how their cancellation system worked, and the order would just go straight back into the return queue.

Then I got billed for the order (almost £300)

I've so far managed to get refunded for half the amount (they seem to want to refund each item individually)

Still waiting on their other half.

I've been told all sorts of random stories by their email support. Their phone support might as well not exist, as it takes hours of being on hold to get through to anyone.

Travelodge hacked, investigating

I use a dot

I've got some custom config stuff on my mailserver that lets me use "." like that - so [e-mail] - since there's no ambiguity with the "." it doesn't upset badly built sites

Ahh...

...maybe he's implying that whilst Lenny might advertise Premier Inn, he'd much rather actually stay at Travelodge.

(That's always bothered me. Travel -odge? Trave -lodge?)

Kindle Store awash with auto-generated crap 'books'

Same in the Android marketplace

You get the same in the Android Marketplace - there are lots of free games that are just a console game ROM wrapped in an emulator, with adverts all over it (often in the middle of the screen, or placed right next to the on screen controls, so it's easy to hit them accidentally)

Sometimes they disappear, but usually another flood appears a few days later

London Ambulance Service downed by upgrade cockup

What about the last time?

You failed to mention the irony that the last time they upgraded (i.e. when the 20 year system they're replacing was new) there was also a monumental (and well documented) cockup

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=london+ambulance+service+cad+1992

4 in 5 surfers open to browser exploits from fixed flaws

And an extension

If you get that far, it then asks you to install a custom extension.

So really, all their stats tell is is how many people who'll happily run any old bit of javascript, and install any old extension, are at risk.

This tells you nothing about the people who, like us, think "Um, what? No." and go away.

Sony Ericsson outs Neo, Pro smartphones

that's standard

You should be able to - that's a standard Android feature, so I don't see why S.E. would disable it.

BBC Trust says no to kit-specific iPlayer apps

What about third party apps then?

Multiple third party Android iplayer apps have been taken down after BBC cease and desist notices - the assumption has always been that it's because an official app is coming soon.

So now, presumably, this isn't the case. For platforms that can't play the flash video on the iplayer website, what options are there?

Google Voice brings expectation management to Santa 2.0

What about the rest of the world?

Shame it's US only for the phone call - doesn't quite have the same effect when they just get emailed a link to the website

Legendary steampunk computer 'should be built' - programmer

bugs

Actually, that's the original meaning of the term "bugs" - insects that crawled into early computers and stopped them working

Apple: third-party iOS dev tools OK after all

Patch!

That's easy enough to get around - Write the code for the addon, include it in an update patch (that's free to everyone), but disable it the new functionality unless the necessary data files are there, then allow the app to download these data files separately. That's generally how xbox/ps3 DLC works

First SMS Trojan for Android is in the wild

Pretty simple

The user installs an app that sends SMS messages to premium rate numbers - that's all. As far as the network provider can see, there's no difference between an App sent SMS and one you've manually sent yourself.

The only person to blame is the end user. What the story doesn't make clear is that this trojan is only available from dodgy means - e.g. people downloading from "Paid apps for free!" websites or torrents, then ignoring the "This app needs permissions to send SMS messages, that could cost you money" warning that pops up when they install it.

It's in beta

I.e. you request an invite, and they let people in, in dribs and drabs.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini

Thickbuttons

If you really want a Qwerty Keyboard, you can install ThickButtons : http://www.thickbuttons.com/

I've tried it on mine, and it works, although the buttons are still a bit teeny to type on - I found I could type much faster going back to the 9 key predictive text system you get by default.

I've had my x10 mini for about 3 weeks now, and am, on the whole, very happy with it. The only quirks I've found is that it has a habit of losing wifi signal until you turn the wifi off and on again (though this may be related to my ancient belkin router, as I haven't noticed the problem when connected to other hotspots) and its weird habit of being a bit sleepy in the mornings when it wakes to sound an alarm, leaving you stabbing frantically at the snooze button trying to make it shut up until it registers the press

BBC confirms death of 6Music, slashes online budget by a quarter

Digital babysitter?

Then you, as a responsible parent, who's sat watching TV with their child, only turn it on when there are programs suitable for their age range, and turn it off again afterwards.

Latest Asus Eee Keyboard desktop demo'd

Erm

First complete PC to fit into a keyboard.

...riight...

Sharp intros 5in ARM-based netbook

Cost

44800 yen, apparently (£295 / $478)

Security consultant's blog found pushing crudware

Google's other web publishing system

"This isn't the first time Blogspot has been used by scammers. In March, Blogger.com, Google's other web publishing system,"

but Blogspot **is** Blogger (or rather Blogspot is the free web hosting that Blogger provides if you choose not to host your blogger blog on your own website)