Posts by DubiousMind

Not so smart after all: A techie's tale of toilet noise horror

Re: Toilets, health trackers, sexual innuendo

Dabbsy, after all these years, you're clearly starting to rub off on the other Reg reporters!

WannaCrypt: Roots, reasons and why scramble patching won't save you now

Protecting against end users

"you just can't protect yourself against your own users"

There is no silver bullet to security and multiple layers of defence should be used. Of-course, anti-virus can only protect for known issues. As for your own users, using a solution that enables white listing of running processes is going to help.

Google hopes to sniff out OS X badware

And in other news....

Ford has invented a machine called a 'car', to replace your horse and cart!

Really El Reg, this is not news. Google has been working on this for a number of years, as you can see from the git project check-in dates. They also did a presentation with Q&A on how they manage their own Mac estate, which included this tool, amongst others and freely available for all to watch. The presentation can be seen here:

https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa13/managing-macs-google-scale

McAfee gaffe a quick AV kill for enterprising staff

Re: responsibility

Avecto can recommend this, because their Defendpoint product provides, securely, the convenience of required rights for Standard Users, negating the need for an Administrator account.

Apple's design 'drives up support costs, makes gadgets harder to use'

Re: Too true.

Scroll bars can be turned on permanently in System Preferences->General-> "Show Scroll Bars: ", so there's no need to miss that.

Whilst it looks clean for them to hide when not scrolling, it is annoying!

Goodfella's attack smacks Slack chap for whack crack? It's a fact, Jack

There's no such thing as bad publicity

Imagine the scenario before going on stage: -

Butterfield: "Hey Bob, I really admire you and the work you've done. I think you're one of the greatest actors of our time. Nobody really knows who I am yet, but I'd really could do with getting my name out there. If you wouldn't mind having a dig at me out there, it would really make my night."

Bob: "Sure, no problem".

And the rest is history.

El Reg celebrates Back to the Future Day

The Cuckoo's Future Return

After all that time cooped up in the Cuckoo's Nest, Taber believed himself to be called Doc and his friend McMurphy, Marty. It was a strange future going on in his head; a future from which many believe he could never return!

Giant FLYING SPACE ROCKS could KILL US ALL, warns Brian May

The reports of Brian leaving Queen have been greatly exaggerated!

"ex-Queen guitar man and astrophysicist Brian May"

I think you'll find that Brian May is still very much an active member of the band known as Queen and are touring in South America later this year - http://www.queenonline.com/

Will a data centre be driving your car in 12 years' time?

Open to corruption

"Similarly, systems to automate parking and direct cars to empty spaces will require cars to be integrated with municipal systems and those of private parking operators."

What's going to stop the private parking operators paying subsidies to the companies which drive the data systems, to encourage their overly priced parking facilities to be preferred over cheaper or even free parking?!

Fanbois designing Windows 10 – where's it going to end?

Don't ask the user!

Before the invention of the car, when asked what the people wanted, they said 'more horses'!

(Re)touching on a quarter-century of Adobe Photoshop

Subscription model is not suited to everyone

After having used Deluxe Paint on an Amiga and then getting a PC, I discovered the wonders of Photoshop and have used it ever since; now, mostly for photography.

I worked in the video game sector for 10 years and many of the artists used Photoshop as they had "acquired" it when they were at school and taught themselves how to use it. Of-course the companies they went on to work for would spend the huge amounts of money required for all their employees to have Photoshop.

If Adobe insist on only having a subscription model, I expect things to change in the longer term. Kids of today will find a competitor's product which does what they need and will use that instead. When they grow up, they may no longer have Photoshop skills required in the corporate world and either companies will have to pay for training, or switch to a cheaper product. I know which I'd prefer!

Take, for example Pixelmator for OS X, it's just £22 to own, from the App Store, getting rave reviews and some professionals are starting to use it too. I think Adobe should watch their backs!

Get your CLOCK out, you coders: Apple emits Watch dev kit

Apple Watch, what's the point

When Apple announced the Apple Watch, I thought "that's cool", and was impressed with the keynote presentation. Had Apple had them (iPhone and Watch) to buy the day after the announcement I may have even been tempted; definitely with the phone and maybe with the watch, but since bought a Moto X.

Having had time to think about the watch, what's the point? Unless you're really into sport and want to monitor everything you do, or take a lot of flights, which most of us don't, I don't see the fascination of this product, or am I missing something?

In addition, as an OS X developer I have no inclination to write apps for this product. Am I an exception here?

PHONDLESLAB-ULOUS: Motorola Moto X Android phablet

I'm fairly sure when I purchased mine from the Moto Maker site, the terms and conditions stated allowed for returning of the device, if you weren't happy with it within the first 14 days or so.

Watch out, Samsung and Apple: Xiaomi's No 3 in smartphones now

Lenovo is the one to watch

Having just finalised their purchase of Motorola today, Lenovo is reportedly the 3rd largest manufacturer of mobiles: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25956284