Posts by Andy

Visa yanks creds for payment card processing pair

Cahoot WEBCARD anyone??

I still don't understand why the Cahoot Webcard system (which hasn't been invented by Cahoot, some Irish and US or Canadian Banks use it too) hasn't been adopted by everyone.

It's one time credit card numbers with individual limits the user can set him/herself (within their general credit limit) and valid for only a single transaction generated on the fly when needed, fairly bulletproof, certainly much better than using you physical credit card details on the web.

Unless Visa and the banks don't actually want a very secure system....

New DNS trojan taints entire LAN from single box

DHCP is inherently insecure

I have always avoided DHCP and always recommended against it's use, it was just a matter of time for malware to exploit the inherent insecurity of the DHCP protocol.

I guess DHCP will need to be converted to use cryptographic keys too, like DNSSEC.

Pininfarina, Bolloré bullish about Bluecar

to all the naysayers here

The Bluecar has a very respectable range of 250km (~150 miles) and a decent top speed of 130km/h (~80mph), while looks and style are a matter of taste and granted the pictures in this article are not very flattering, the Blucar looks actually quite nice in the flesh, see also here for some better pictures:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/11/19/pininfarina_production_shift/page2.html

If Pininfarina/Bollore actually deliver as promised, then this will likely be a very successful electric car, which can meet the real life needs (with regards to range and practicality) of many people.

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth praises Windows 7, welcomes fight

misguided

That's why I dislike Ubuntu, it's just trying to emulate Windows (including all the annoying bits) instead of trying to innovate and lead with original ideas.

I'm sticking with Mandriva Linux which IMHO has always been and still is the best desktop Linux distro, the 2008.1 edition in particular is next to perfect, I will be sticking with it for quite a while even as newer version are coming out, until a newer version convinces me even more.

Toshiba NB100 netbook

nothing special

This is a far cry from the spectacular Libretto U100, have all the Toshiba engineers that made that great sub-notebook 3 years ago left Toshiba?

I still prefer my U100 (running Mandriva Linux) to any of the current crop of netbooks, even the 1.2GHz, 2MB cache Pentium M inside it, is noticeably faster than any Atom.

Mozilla hastily shoves Firefox updates out door

Seamonkey - the FF for the clued up folks

I'm just glad there is Seamonkey available, which doesn't treat you like a clueless newbie like IE and FF (as it wants to imitate IE) do.

For anyone frustrated with FF, try Seamonkey, same browsing engine as FF, therefore same extensions and plugins as FF, but much better UI, more configurable, and no useless cpu-consuming gimmicks.

2008's top three netbooks

where is the HP Mini-Note 2133 ??

I bought a top of the range HP Mini-Note 2133 (1.6Ghz C7, 2GB RAM, 120GB hdd, WXGA screen, 6 cell battery) for 240 quid and I'm extremely pleased with it:

- best keyboard of any netbook

- best screen (1280*768) of any netbook

- solid all-aluminium casing

- a/b/g WLAN + bluetooth inbuilt

- PCIexpress card slot (for 3G network card

- 4+ hours real life battery life

Yeah I know it has a Via C7, but the 1.6GHz version with Linux (just replace the horrible Suse Linux with Mandriva 2009!!) combined with 2GB of RAM feel very quick, my concerns regards to performance were completely unfounded.

And it looks miles better than any other netbook!

Bot-wielding hackers crash eBay holiday giveaway

article not clear

I don't get it, were is the scandal? If the auction items start at $1 and no one else bids for it, then it goes for $1, it doesn't matter if the bid comes from a script or a human.

If the item had no views then surely no one was looking for it, so there was no demand for it.

Infocus X10 projector

Have you ever heard of the Optoma HD800X?!

"Full HD is what we all want, but until the release of the X10 from InFocus, a projector capable of displaying a full 1080p image would have cost you the proverbial arm and a leg."

The first sentence gives away this badly researched review already, the Optoma HD800X 1080p DLP projector has been available for the best part of a year even in the UK, for just above 900 quid and with a 6 speed colour wheel which all but eliminates rainbow effect and has gotten very good reviews all over the net.

But if you search for Optoma or HD800X on TheReg you get no results...

Rock-solid Fedora 10 brings salvation to Ubuntu weary

Mandriva is still superior

I tried (K)ubuntu, I tried Fedora, but none comes close to the stability, whilst still being up-to-date, of Mandriva.

I'm currently still using Mandriva 2008.1, not yet 2009, as I never like bleeding edge stuff (I actually use my PC, I don't just experiment with it!) but I have already paid for the 2009 Powerpack download version (with Ubuntu having the unfair advantage of a rich backer who doesn't mind making a loss, Mandriva can use all the financial support it gets, and so far my 59 Euros have always been worth it).

@Ben Schofield: you must be doing something wrong: I get already 1200fps with a 300x300 pixel window of glxgears on my old P4 2.5Ghz with an ancient Nvidia FX5200 driving 2 monitors at 1280x1024!

Shuttleworth on Ubuntu: It ain't about the money

wasteful use of his money

While I admire his generosity which certainly has helped to make Linux more popular, I believe it would have been a more efficient investment if he had bought out Mandriva in 2004/5 and therefore invested his money into further improving a distro which was already and still is the best Linux desktop distribution by far, but unfortunately had cashflow problems due to the mentioned difficulty to make money with desktop Linux.

With his choice of creating Ubuntu he has instead weakened Mandriva by drawing away attention from it and wasted money/resources by having to start another distro from scratch.

Choice in the Linux world is good, but in this case investing in Mandriva would have helped the Linux desktop cause much more.

Abu Dhabi emir rescues Thames Estuary mega-windfarm

An average UK household uses 22,795 kilowatt hours a year

that would be on average 2.6 KW every single hour of the day!!! Seems like an unbelieveable statistic to me, or did they just survey TheReg readers with mini-datacentres in the attic?

Adobe patch thwarts clickjacking attack

How convenient

Flash player version 10 is out and Adobe all of a sudden discovers critical issues in the previous version...

How convenient to push everyone to upgrade asap...

SanDisk forecasts memory-less MP3 player future

this has been around for 7-8 years...

I'm still using my trusty Frontier Labs NEX IIe CF card based player (I started off with a 1GB IBM microdrive as media and currently I use it with a 4GB CF card) and my wife has a 5 year old Nex Ia+ player also with a 4GB CF card, it's a shame these players didn't get the success they deserved, it's so much handier to just plug the CF card into my PC (USB card reader) or laptop (PCMCIA slot) to copy some new songs onto it without having to use any propietary music manager software.

After all this is how portable players have always been from the original Walkman to the portable CD players and MD players, the medium holding the data is independent of the player itself, I never understood the concept of MP3 players with fixed inbuilt memory.

Verbatim 500GB desktop external hard drive

disappointed by the review

come on 'The Register', you can do better than this, this review is lacking useful details like, how hot does the drive get (active or passive cooling?), how much power does it draw in active and standby modes and how much noise it makes.

Maybe a peek inside to identify the brand and model of the HD could have been useful too.

This is The Register after all, not Women's Weekly...

Men jailed for inciting terrorism on the internet

Switzerland?

Adrian, I'm not sure I understand your comment about Switzerland, can you please explain further what you meant?

Thanks.